


An Ever Fixed Mark

by pillage_and_lute



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Angst with a Happy Ending, Courting Rituals, Fluff and Angst, Geraksier, How Do I Tag, M/M, Political Intrigue, courting gifts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27563239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillage_and_lute/pseuds/pillage_and_lute
Summary: Geralt is forced to marry the Earl de Lettenhove's only son, and is charmed by Julian, who goes by Jaskier, but political marriages are tricky, and surely a viscount has no place in Geralt's life.This is an arranged marriage au featuring Geraskier, with added family and found family vibes with the wolves of Kaer Morhen.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 114
Kudos: 442





	1. Chapter 1

Vesemir’s slap hit Geralt firmly on the back of the head. Two seconds previously Geralt had been complaining about his upcoming, politically motivated marriage to some nobleman’s son. 

“It’s a good thing, lad. Other witcher schools would kill for something like this,” he said. Geralt knew it was right, legal punishment for those who shortchanged or attacked witchers. It set a precedent, and apparently the earl was very influential. It could change things.

“And there isn’t a fidelity clause,” Eskel said. “It doesn’t have to be more than a sort of partnership.”

“No consummation requirement either,” sniggered Lambert from the other side of the campfire. “You don’t even have to fuck the bugger if he’s ugly.” This earned him a sharp elbow from Eskel. 

“What I don’t understand is what they get out of this,” Geralt said. It had been bugging him. 

“Ah,” Vesemir said, looking uneasy. “It seems that the payment is…taking the viscount off of the Earl’s hands, officially. It seems he’s something of an embarrassment.”

The unease in Vesemir’s voice was subtle, but after so many decades with their teacher, the wolves of Kaer Morhen knew the slight variations of tone and expression. His discomfort was twofold, first, the obvious implication that the Earl was sending his son to live a dangerous life alongside a witcher in order to…deal with him. A death sentence, from father to son. The second was that Geralt, already saddled with a political marriage, was also to be saddled with a nuisance of a husband. 

“But why me?” Geralt knew he was whining like a child, but he couldn’t help it. It was three days to Lettenhove, and then they’d be there at least a week for the wedding and he’d have to act courtly. 

He wasn’t good at courtly.

When he thought about it none of them were. 

“It couldn’t have been me,” Eskel said, a little shyly. He was right. Eskel believed his scars were horrible, made him unlovable and undesirable. Geralt didn’t buy it, but nobles could get a bit stroppy about appearances. And if they humiliated Eskel because of his scarring…no, Geralt wouldn’t let that happen.

“Couldn’t have been me,” Lambert said, mouth full and rather cheerfully. No. It couldn’t have been him either, no manners and no filter, they’d be at war with the entirety of Lettenhove within a day.

“And I’m an old man,” Vesemir said. He didn’t actually wink, but he might as well have. Older though he was, he was still three times the warrior of any young human man walking about these days. But from what Geralt had heard, and it hadn’t been much, the Viscount was young, not quite twenty, and it wouldn’t be kind to marry him to someone so much older than himself. Geralt reflected grimly that he was nearly four times the youth’s age.

Three days of riding passed far too quickly for Geralt’s liking.

Chateau de Lettenhove loomed. It was a fairytale castle built by a man expecting a siege. There were high, rising towers with huge windows and artful buttresses, but to the trained eye of the witchers, it was a fortress. The towers had carved, decorative arrow slits, the windows all had iron grates over them, wrought like lace, and the buttresses could be easily used as defensive positions. All in all, it was a castle that growled, albeit genteelly.

They were greeted first by a footman, and then a line of servants increasing in rank, until a very snobby servant, likely the head housekeeper from the way all the maids scuttled away from her, brought them to an anteroom. At this point courtesy dictated that she bade them sit down on one of the lavish sofas. She did not. She chose instead to turn up her nose and sweep away.

The four witchers remained standing, not looking at one another. Geralt could feel Lambert stewing about the obvious slight beside him. He reached out, still staring straight ahead, and tweaked Lambert’s ear. 

This was about to result in much brotherly retribution and probably a brawl when the housekeeper returned, followed by another woman.

“His lordship the Earl of Lettenhove is attending to vital business,” the housekeeper said, tone of voice implying that the arrival of four witchers who were muddying her nice clean floor were certainly not vital. “I present, her ladyship, Countess Amaria Elizaveta de Lettenhove.” 

The countess curtsied, it was a polite little bob, and she smiled a little dazedly as the witchers all gave their best attempt at courtly bows. A small but significant part of Geralt’s brain was panicking, and it dealt with this new form of terror by imagining that the school of the wolf, seen from the outside plying their newly practiced bows, must look like a line of seagulls vying for a dropped crumb.

Vesemir stepped forward and, in a rather more suave gesture than Geralt had been expecting, took the Countess’ hand and bowed over it. Two bows seemed excessive to Geralt, but since it seemed to indicate that Vesemir would be taking over the speaking for now, he certainly wasn’t about to bring it up. 

“A pleasure to meet you, my lady,” Vesemir said, straightening and releasing her hand. “May I introduce the school of the wolf. Eskel is–”

The countess had waved a limp hand. “Plenty of time for that at the feast, deary,” she said, smiling dreamily. There was something in her eyes that was a little absent, possibly more than a little if her calling Vesemir ‘deary’ was anything to go by. Geralt looked the countess over. He had been given to understand through the brief letters from the Lettenhove estate, that this wasn’t the viscount-Julian, the letters said-’s mother, but rather his step mother. She was a petite lady with mousy hair and rather absent blue eyes. Her dress was obviously of very fine material, rose pink and probably silk, although Lambert would know better than him, but a simpler cut than Geralt had expected. 

His examination, done in a split second, decided that she wasn’t an immediate enemy, but probably not a terrible useful ally. 

“I’m to give you this courting gift,” here she proffered a small but beautifully carved wooden box. “And to show you to your quarters.” She smiled again, and it was warm, but still vapid.

“Custom usually dictates that the fiancé give the courting gift,” Vesemir said, cautiously taking the box.”

“My husband wanted someone else to present it,” she said. “But your grandson can give his gift in person when he meets Julian. Now what…” she trailed off, not even noticing Vesemir’s slight sputter at grandson. “Ah yes, your rooms, right this way please.”

She got lost on the way to their rooms and a shaking footman showed them up to a suite, then kindly took her by the hand and led her away.

They sat, silent, in the nice but not lavish quarters. Four beds in curtained alcoves off to the side, and in the middle a room with a table and chairs, and a sofa and more comfortable chairs in front of a fireplace. It was already blazing and the witchers stared into it for a minute.

“That was strange,” Eskel finally said, and the others just nodded.

“Should I have insisted on giving her our courting gift?” Geralt said after another pause. “I thought they were usually given in person.”

“I think you’re fine,” Vesemir said. “If they broke that tradition they can hardly fault you for doing the same.”

Lambert, sprawled across the sofa, said, “When’s dinner?”

“I think I’m supposed to meet Julian first,” Geralt said. “Someone will probably come get us. 

“When we meet Julian you mean,” Lambert said, sitting up. 

“No, I’ve been thinking about that and I want to meet him alone.”

Vesemir nodded, “Sensible, we don’t know how he will react to one witcher, let alone four.” Then he smirked, although not unkindly, at Lambert. “You will be introduced and have a chance to be nosy later. At dinner perhaps.”

They unpacked their belongings, potion bottles and swords looking out of place along the old but nicely carved furniture. After days of tension on the road as Geralt wound himself tighter and tighter with anxiety for his…wedding, yes his wedding, now this pause was jarring. Eskel tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a look.

Geralt turned around to give Eskel room to work.

On the Path, witchers are rarely, if ever touched. Certainly not in a friendly way if the other isn’t being compensated. It wasn’t therefore, unusual for the wolves of Kaer Morhen to be tactile with one another. Not hugging and cuddling sweetly, but rough housing and wrestling ending in exhausted dog piles. But Eskel had a gift, he had magic hands, literally and figuratively, and he carefully oiled his hands while Geralt took off his travel stained shirt. 

Geralt sunk into himself, half meditating as Eskel dragged the tension from his shoulders and beat the knots from his muscles. It wasn’t a relaxing massage, but it always left him feeling like liquid, if slightly bruised. When it was over and the liquid feeling had left him, or at least subsided enough that his knees could hold him, he stood, clapping Eskel on the shoulder in thanks.

Then came the hard bit.

Geralt needed to be courtly. He scrubbed the bits he could with water and a cloth from a little washstand, but he hoped he could have a hot bath later. Afterwards Vesemir advanced on him and battled the dirt from underneath his fingernails with a stiff brush before attacking his hair with a comb. Geralt sat on the ground like a child, his brothers looking on in amusement as Vesemir sat behind him on the couch and teased the tangles from his hair. He was making faces, he knew, but Vesemir wasn’t gentle, and he hadn’t detangled his hair in some time.

Scrubbed raw, with his hair floating around his shoulders like a silver cloud, Lambert presented him with a doublet. 

It was black, which was good.

That was the only good thing about it. It was most likely a very nice, extremely fashionable doublet. Lambert might take delight in embarrassing Geralt, but he didn’t mess about with clothing. The issue was that it was attention grabbing, it was subtle in a way that seemed to play itself down while actually drawing every eye. It was black, in the same way a raven’s wing was black, every shimmering shade shifting as the fabric moved.

And he would be wearing it. 

He did wear it. 

His hands shook as he buttoned it up. 

He was just examining himself in a slightly tarnished hand mirror when there was a sharp knock at the door. The footman let himself in right after and bowed swiftly. 

“I am to escort the witchers of Kaer Morhen to meet Lord Julian.”

“Just the one witcher,” Geralt said. Vesemir pressed his courting gift, and the little carved boxed nestled on top, into his arms.

The footman didn’t seem to care and simply turned away, leading Geralt through hallways that all looked the same and down two very winding staircases, the second of which was so narrow his shoulders actually brushed the walls. They stopped outside a plain wooden door. The footman bowed and smiled. It looked, Geralt couldn’t help but feel, rather cruel. Then he left. Geralt knocked softly on the door, feeling very large in the narrow, low ceilinged hallway.

Eskel had told him once of a myth he had read, about a beast, half man half bull, hidden away in a maze. Geralt felt like such a beast, too large and rough and probably going to barge in and do everything wrong.

“Come in.” 

It was soft, but not nervous, and Geralt pushed open the door.


	2. In which we meet the betrothed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The courting gift scene based on a recommendation from @tempered-char on Tumblr. Also with a hint of Geralt’s Delicate Sensibilities, as inspired by @valdomarx on Tumblr +Thicc Eskel as a bonus

“Come in.”

It was soft, but not nervous, and Geralt pushed open the door.

Geralt wasn’t a romantic. He didn’t believe in love at first sight. From what he’d seen of the world he wasn’t so sure he believed in love at all. He could imagine, however, that if he were a painter or a poet he could have fallen in love right there.

The room was a tiny, dusty study, and standing in front of the window was, presumably, Julian. The light haloed him, dust mites floating down. Grey-blue doublet and slightly darker pants brought out clear, bright eyes, rimmed with thick lashes. 

He had a rounder jawline, the sort that was in style with painters at the moment. It leant a softness to his face. Maybe that was the fact that he was…nineteen? Geralt couldn’t remember.

He realized he was staring and bowed. It was awkard, still holding his gift and the gift from the countess. He looked up, Julian was smiling.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lord Julian,” Geralt said. “I am Geralt of Rivia.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Geralt, and please, call me Jaskier,” said the young man. He stuck out his hand. Geralt quickly shifted the gifts to one hand and shook. 

The hand was soft but not uncalloused, at the fingertips and base of the thumb. Long fingers, good for playing the lute that sat, gleaming and well cared for, in the corner.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, tasting the name. It was a good name, bright and pretty and a deadly poison if treated incorrectly. “I have a gift for you, and her ladyship gave me a gift but I haven’t opened it yet.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes and sat on a plush chair, gesturing Geralt to one opposite. “I have my own gift for you,” he said. “Father and Amaria didn’t think I could get my own courting gifts.”

Geralt decided to give up on subtlety. He wanted answers and he hoped this young man, Jaskier, was willing to give them.

“They want rid of you,” he said. It was a question but without the inflection at the end. “Enough to marry you off to a witcher.”

Jaskier sighed. “Just father, Amaria doesn’t have much to do with anything these days.”

“She seemed…” Geralt trailed off, not wanting to be disrespectful.

“It’s all about heirs,” Jaskier said, standing and beginning to pace. “Suitable heirs, which I’m not.” He sent Geralt a bitter little smile and flopped back down. “My father is not a nice man, you see. He’s never taken kindly to disagreements, and to him there’s only one ‘right’ sort of man. Men like him, manly and strong who kill first and don’t bother asking questions later. I questioned him, maybe three years ago, I didn’t think he should raise taxes again. He doesn’t forgive that sort of slight.” 

Jaskier leaned forward, elbows on knees and stared at the ground for a second.

“I think he’d decided long before that, but he wants me struck from the family tree.” Jaskier looked up at Geralt. Some of his confusion must have been showing on his face.

This world of heirs and court intrigue was far from anything Geralt knew, and seemed more complicated than necessary.

“Follow me,” Jaskier said, rising and stretching out his hand again. “You can leave the gifts, we’ll be back.” Geralt set dow the gifts and hesitantly stretched out his hand, unsure if the gesture was figurative or if he was actually supposed to take it. Jaskier took him gently by the wrist and led him from the room.

“The halls are a maze,” he said, letting go a coridor later. “Follow close behind me, you could get lost.” Geralt did so. He couldn’t imagine anything more embarassing than having a footman fetch him from one of these little stone tunnels.

They emerged in yet another dusty hall, lined with tapestries. Jaskier stopped in between two, and in front of a large, painted wooden panel. It had a tree.

A family tree. 

“My father,” Jaskier said, tracing his finger along dusty, painted branches. “Finds it very important that the next Earl be his direct blood, and also his kind of man.” He looked at Geralt significantly. “That meant ridding himself of Amaria’s sons from her first marriage, by the laws of our country, he could have been heir. That also means getting rid of me.”

This explanation did not help Geralt’s bafflement. Jaskier sighed again, although he didn’t seem to be doing so at Geralt.

“Amaria had two sons, both manly and well suited to my father, but not his direct blood. And they were older than me, set to inherit the role of Earl first. They met with horrible accidents.” A shadow passed of Jaskier’s boyish face. 

“Strange coincidence, how a large rock managed to tumble from the ramparts on to Isak not even a week after the same thing happened to Tomas. Especially since there’s not rocks up there. I checked.”

“Your father,” Geralt said, a little numbly. “Had his stepson’s murdered.” He knew nobility could be nasty but still… “And we’ve made a deal with him.”

Jaskier patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry too much about it, Father mostly doesn’t do too much harm these days, and Filip, that’s my half brother, seems like he’ll turn out okay. Then again, he’s only seven.”

“Is he going to have you killed?” Geralt asked, knowing as he did that the Earl was trying, by way of marrying Jaskier to him.

“Not exactly. I don’t know if it’s because I’m blood or just because another ‘accident’ would look suspicious, but there’s an easier way.” Jaskier pointed to a name circled in blue. “That’s my aunt Matylda, father’s older sister. She got married, which officially makes her part of her husband’s family tree, not ours, and she can no longer inherit,” Jaskier paused. “If she weren’t already a woman, I mean.”

“But we’re both men,” Geralt said. “I could just as easily become part of your family tree and then your father’s problem.”

“Yes,” Jaskier said, “In theory, but of course that isn’t how he played it. I’ll be an honorary witcher, and my name,” here he tapped some fine script. “Will be circled in blue and removed from the line.”

They both looked at the tree, looming darkly for a while. 

“I’m sorry,” Geralt offered, although he supposed it wasn’t worth much.

“I’m sorry too,” Jaskier said. “You shouldn’t be roped into all this.”

Geralt privately considered that, yes, while he would have preferred to avoid all this intrigue and politics, Jaskier didn’t seem too bad.

Jaskier led him back through the stone rabbit warren that made up the bowels of the castle.

“Is her ladyship…like that, because of the death of her sons?” Geralt asked when they paused at the top of a staircase. 

Jaskier cocked his head sadly, and then continued walking. Aftr a few more paced he said, “Yes, mostly. She wasn’t always…present, I suppose before but when they died so close together, and in such an awful way– there’s nothing nice about a block of stone dropping on you from four stories up–something broke. She’s a nice lady, just happier living in her head, I think. Maybe she goes somewhere else, where her boys and her first husband are alive, I hope.”

They arrived back at the study without another word. 

They sat.

“I, um.” Geralt said. “Hmmm. I got you,” he proferred the package, not knowing what to say and begging Jaskier to save him from trying to figure it out. 

Jaskier took the package and pulled the string so that it fell open. The doublet slithered out. Vesemir had sent a letter asking for measurements as soon as Geralt had told him the idea.

“It’s basilisk leather,” Geralt said. “Witchers, um, our Path, it can be dangerous, so you should have this.”

Jaskier held up the fabric, watching the colors, deep blue and green, shift across the slick material. Privately, and for no reason Geralt could really guess at, he was very pleased, both that the doublet was in what seemed to be Jaskier’s colors, and also at the awe struck look on his face.

“It’s as light as silk,” Jaskier said, passing the fabric between his fingers. “And you said it’s leather?”

“Basilisk leather,” Geralt said. Monsters. They were talking about monsters, which he knew about. Thank the gods. “It’s like armor, and it won’t burn or get wet, water just runs off.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as basilisk leather,” Jaskier said, holding the doublet up. “Where did you get it? It’s incredible.”

Geralt coughed modestly, and tried not to puff his chest. “I killed the basilisk. Making the leather needs different skills than normal tanning, it’s more like potion making.” He remembered that most people knew little about witcher skills and needs. “All witchers know some alchemy, and we make potions for combat so I…I tanned it. My brother Lambert drew up the design, I don’t know much about clothes.”

The tailor had nearly cried when they’d presented him with the fabric, exclaiming about it’s luster and the ‘glorious smooth hand’, whatever that meant. 

Geralt watched Jaskier’s face anxiously. It wasn’t a courtly gift, no crown of pearls or whatever nobles expected, but it had taken him two months to turn the basilisk skin into leather. It would have taken him half the time but he’d had to do it on the road. Lambert had fussed about the design for almost a week too, and it had been Eskel’s idea to ask for the buttons to be little black pearls like that.

Vesemir had smiled at the team effort, calling it the wolves gift to their new pup.

Jaskier looked up at him, face like a sunbeam. 

“Can I try it on?”

Geralt just nodded, and looked away modestly as Jaskier divested himself of his previous doublet before buttoning the basilisk leather.

He twirled, and in the light from the window the fabric seemed to glow, shifting and turning with each movement. 

“And it really will keep me safe?” he asked, looking down at himself, beaming. 

Geralt nodded. “It would take a battle axe a dozen tries to pierce it.”

Jaskier smiled at him again, and it made Geralt’s stomach tingle, although he had eaten some suspect meat on the ride to Lettenhove. Then Jaskier threw his arms around his neck.

Geralt wasn’t old fashioned. He could move with the times, whatever Lambert said, but manners had been stiffer sixty years ago and Geralt was just thankful that Jaskier wouldn’t be able to see the tips of his ears going red.

“It’s beautiful,” Jaskier said, pulling back. “Thank you.”

Geralt shrugged uncomfortably. Jaskier smelled like soap and some sort of oil. Linseed maybe, probably for the wood of his lute.

“I have a gift for you, it’s not as lovely, but I hope you like it.”

Geralt carefully took the package. It was wrapped much prettier than his had been. “The countess already…”

“That was from her,” Jaskier said dismissively. “And maybe even from Father, although I doubt it, he wouldn’t waste money on me. But this gift is from me.” He sat forward eagerly. “Go on, open it.”

Geralt wasn’t about to refuse that eager, open expression, so he pulled at the ribbon, feeling rather like a bear trying to tie a shoelace.

The bright paper just fell away and there was a stiff paper box. He opened that too. 

Three glass bottles sat inside, nestled in paper. The paper was only there to keep them from clinking because as he pulled one out he saw the telltale dark sheen.

Brimstone glass. It was unbreakable. Sometimes witchers carried their more noxious potions in it but rarely, it was frighteningly expensive, usually only mages could afford it.

“How?” he said. How did you afford it? How did you know it existed? Did you know witchers use potions? He looked up at Jaskier, who looked nervous.

“Are they alright?” he said. “Only I won them off a sorceror in a pub. He told me they were indestructible and threw one at the ground to prove it. I thought they’d be useful…Was it a trick?” He looked so upset at the prospect.

“These, Geralt said, “Are Brimstone Glass, they are indeed indestructible and very, very useful.” Jaskier’s face split into a grin again. 

“Thank you,” Geralt said. It didn’t seem like enough, but if he hugged the lad like Jaskier had him he would kill him.

“Should I open the box from the countess?”

“Do,” Jaskier said. “I want to know what it is.”

The latch flicked easily under Geralt’s hand and the lid popped open.

Jaskier gasped.

“It’s my mother’s ring,” he said. “I don’t remember her well, but I remember her hands…”

It was a beautiful ring, opal, if Geralt was any judge, but Eskel knew stones better than him. Silver wound around the stone, with smaller gems studding the setting to either side. 

“I will use it in the ceremony,” Geralt said, offering it to Jaskier. “If it fits.”

“It won’t fit,” Jaskier said sadly. “Mother had very small hands, but it’s a nice thought.”

Geralt looked at the ring and Jaskier’s left hand. “Try it?”

Jaskier did, sliding the ring onto his finger easily. He looked at it in amazement.

“Amaria must have had it enlarged,” he said.

“A good gift,” Geralt said, although not sure who the gift was really for.

There came a polite knock at the door, interupting the moment, whatever sort of moment it was.

“My lord, it is time for supper.”

Damn. 

Jaskier slipped the ring back into the box and Geralt looked away as he changed into his regular doublet. He didn’t look away fast enough and caught a scandalous glimpse of collarbone and soft chest hair where the chemise got pulled down a little. The air felt a little stuffy suddenly.

The gifts, and Geralt was proud to see that Jaskier folded the doublet carefully back into the paper, although nothing could have harmed it, were handed to a footman to be taken back to their respective rooms.Geralt offered Jaskier his arm, like he’d seen the nobility do, and then Jaskier led him to the dining hall.

To his relief, the hall wasn’t packed. They were what Lambert would call ‘fashionably late’ (and what Vesemir would call a reason for three extra laps) and all the guests were seated. A table held Lady Amaria and a man who must be the Earl, although there was little visible resemblance to Jaskier. They were seated with perhap half a dozen other nobles, as well as a red headed boy of about seven, Filip, probably, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. There was another table of presumably more minor nobility, and then a small table with the wolves, two seats still empty.

All eyes turned to look at the pair. Jaskier bowed deeply, and since his arm was still linked with Geralt’s he was made to bow too, or else risk having his arm pulled from its socket. Then they made their way to the smallest table.

Geralt pulled out Jaskier’s chair for him and saw Vesemir’s approving nod, as well as Lambert’s smirk. He didn’t see the swift kick Eskel delivered below the table, but caught the way Lambert’s eyes watered suddenly, and smiled at his brother in thanks for the retribution. Then he sat.

“Julian,” Vesemir said, reaching over the table to shake hands. “I am Vesemir, Geralt’s teacher. It is a pleasure to meet you.” 

“I am happy to make your aquaintance, Master Vesemir,” Jaskier said, and Geralt was impressed that he only winced a little bit as Vesemir inadvertently crushed his knuckles in a grip that could moor a boat. He did, however, gently shake out his fingers under the table once he’d been released.

“If you please, however,” Jaskier continued as if nothing had happened. “I prefer my nickname, Jaskier.”

“Jaskier it is, then,” Vesemir said, moustache twitching up at the corners. Geralt suspected he was thinking the same as he had done. Buttercups, pretty and poisonous.

“You were educated at Oxenfurt, is that correct?” Eskel said.

“Yes, in the fine arts, although I specialized in music composition and lute performance. I didn’t catch your name…?” The most delicate question mark was added to the end of the statement. Eskel blushed, Jaskier wouldn’t know it, but Geralt could see the back of his neck reddening.

“Eskel,” he said quickly. “And the asshole who’s snickering is Lambert.”

Jaskier didn’t look even a little intimidated by either of Geralt’s brothers, which was impressive, because Lambert could scowl like it was a contest and Eskel, although only an inch taller than Geralt, was naturally hugely muscled in a way even the mutagens hadn’t managed for Geralt. His chest and arms looked like they’d withstand a siege weapon.

Jaskier turned a smile on Lambert, who was sputtering indignantly at Eskel’s entirely fair description.

“I’m told you helped with my beautiful courting gift,” he said. Then he turned the smile on all of the wolves. “A team effort I imagine.” 

This stunned all three brothers, and made Vesemir smile. Lambert shrugged uncomfortably. For all his prickliness, he couldn’t take a compliment. 

“Eskel’s idea for the buttons,” he muttered, and Geralt knew he’d been entirely won over.

“The buttons are beautiful,” Jaskier said, smiling warmly at Eskel now, who looked like he’d rather be facing a mountain troll. 

“Was Vesemir that got your measurements,” he said, looking down at the tablecloth. Jaskier beamed at the whole table then.

“Truly a team effort, thank you all, it’s beautiful and I cannot wait to wear it.” With that the whole table was well and truly won over by Jaskier. Geralt couldn’t help but brag a little.

“Jaskier gave me Brimstone Glass bottles as a courting gift,” he said, and preened slightly under the others’ slightly jealous noises of amazement. Jaskier flushed a very pretty pink. 

“I just thought they’d be useful,” he said, although his smile was pleased.

Serving girls entered the hall with trays and the chatter in the hall expanded excitedly. A plump young woman set a tray down at their table and Eskel hummed in appreciation.

“It smells delicious,” he said. She smiled at him, looked him up and down, and then winked.

“Oh doesn’t it just, I could just eat it all up,” she said, not looking at the food even as she lifted the cloche from the appetizers. Then she winked and disappeared back into the kitchen. Another girl appeared and filled the goblets but the witchers hardly noticed for laughing at Eskel’s face.

“Seems Mabel took a liking to you,” Jaskier said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. Through his own laughter, Geralt watched Jaskier’s father glaring at their table. Good. The old fuck could choke on it, he didn’t look like he’d ever laughed a day in his life. 

“Careful though,” Jaskier was saying. “She looked ready to take a bite out of you.”

“But,” Eskel gestured, baffled to his face.

“Oh pish,” Jaskier said, taking a swig of wine. “Nobody cares about that sort of thing, do they? Plenty of ladies around here like a few scars, makes men look rugged and dangerous.”

“Rugged?” Eskel rubbed his hand over his face, contemplating. 

“Definitely,” said Jaskier, nodding. He took one of the appetizers. Geralt moved a few to his own plate and slowly their little table descended into a quiet contentment. The appetizers were good, hors d'oeuvres , Geralt remembered Lambert telling him once. They were little bits of paste, meat and vegetable mostly, inside pastry casings.

He smiled when he noticed that he and his brothers were all looking between Jaskier and Vesemir to make sure they hadn’t missed any manners. Eskel swiped Lambert’s elbows off the table.

Eventually the appetizers were replaced with soup. The saucy kitchen girl, Mabel, Jaskier had called her, made a positively salacious remark to Eskel. Something daring about him licking everything clean. Eskel smiled faintly and turned redder than the beet soup.

“You should flirt back,” Jaskier said, once Mabel was gone. “If you’re actually interested, I mean.”

“It’s not that I’m not. Interested I mean,” Eskel squeaked. “But I can’t offer her anything, no marriage or security.”

Jaskier looked at him. It was definitely a look, although not a nasty one. “She asked you to lick her clean and you think that was an invitation to marriage?”

“I wouldn’t want to defile…”

“Oh shut up Eskel, sex doesn’t defile anything. It’s natural and normal and if you think it some how ‘decreases the value’ of a woman than you aren’t the man I thought you to be.” Lambert cut in. “Have some fun, maybe she can remove the stick you’ve lodged up your ass.”

“You’re right, of course,” Eskel said. But now Jaskier was looking worried.

“It won’t be a problem, right?” he asked Geralt. “That I’m not, um a virgin, I mean?”

“No,” Geralt said, probably missing the mark on reassuring, but doing his best. “Unless you mind that I’m not one either. And there is no fidelity clause, and no consummation, you needn’t sleep with me, and you’re free to see other people.”

Jaskier looked at first relieved and then impish, licking the soup from his spoon in a way that made significant parts of Geralt’s brain go numb. “I dunno,” he said, leaning towards Geralt and bumping him with a shoulder. “I can’t imagine consumation with you would be such a chore.”

Melitele’s great gauzy veil, this boy would be the death of him.

There was a pause between soup and the main course, but when Mabel picked up the dishes Eskel leaned towards her and asked if he’d licked it clean enough, to the woman’s obvious approval.

They sat and chatted, Jaskier, Eskel, and Vesemir debated over some old literature that Geralt had never heard of, and then they were interuppted with a cough.

The earl stood, face like stone, beside their table. 

They rose. Vesemir bowed.

“My Lord,” he said. “It is a pleasure to make your aquaintance. I am Vesemir, of the school of the wolf.”

Lord Pankratz inclined his head. “Greetings, Master Vesemir,” he said. “I wish to discuss some of the terms of the contract with you.”

He snapped his fingers and a footman brought him a chair, without waiting for Vesemir’s response.

The wolves sat, feeling wary. Jaskier was looking down at his hands, shoulders shrunk in.

They sat in suspense as Vesemir and Lord Pankratz hashed out details of the legal protections. The main course appeared and the earl stood, and bowed.

“Why don’t we continue this after desert,” he said, smiling smoothly. And it was a very smooth smile. Like an oil slick.

Dinner after that was subdued, despite Eskel returning Mabel’s flirtations. Jaskier looked down at his plate most of the time and the witchers picked up on his unease.

“What’s wrong, Jaskier?” Geralt whispered.

“I don’t know, but he’s planning something, and I don’t like it.”

Then coffee was served after dessert, and the Earl de Lettenhove sat at their table again. 

“Now, for what I really wanted to discuss, I know political marriages can be…challenging,” the earl said in a voice like a snake. “But I wanted to make it clear, should either member express a wish to anul the marriage, the contract will become void.” Here he squeezed Jaskier’s shoulder so hard he winced. “I couldn’t bear for my dear Julian to be unhappy, you see. He’s high maintainance I know, but I wish him the best.”

The earl smiled a despicable little smile. “Now, I think you two shouldn’t really see more of each other before the wedding, yes? Bad luck and all.”

The earl then hauled Jaskier away by his collar.

“What a cunt,” Lambert said.

“I figured that was in the contract anyway,” Geralt said. “Isn’t that normally how it works?”

Vesemir nodded. “Indeed, it’s how these marriages go. But I expect the earl is betting that the two of you wont be able to stand eachother, and so he gets rid of his son and doesn’t have to help witchers all in one go.”

“Yes, Jaskier explained things.”

And then Geralt told his family what Jaskier had told him. The suspicious accidents, the laws, the family tree.

“I agree with Lambert,” Eskel said. “What a gigantic fucking cunt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What’s with my thing about clothing descriptions and fancy cloth? I’m a fashion design major, that’s what. 
> 
> We’ve got answers about Amaria, and the reason for the engagement, but what’s the wedding going to be like? oooh, cliffhanger, but not too much so I hope it makes up for last time when I was so bad to you all.


	3. In which they get hitched, and Geralt gets nervous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow 5000 words that I basically had to thumbscrew from my brain.

Three days.

Three entire, fucking awful days until the wedding.

Geralt had paced in their quarters, he had paced in the halls, he had paced in the courtyard (after getting lost and pacing until a footman found him. He had taken Roach out for a ride and paced her.

It wasn’t just cold feet, pre wedding jitters, or the usual sort.

He was afraid for Jaskier, afraid for himself, and afraid of letting down witchers. If Jaskier became unhappy in their marriage the contract was void. Jaskier didn’t seem happy in Lettenhove but it was comfortable and he had plenty to eat and a warm place to sleep. Nice clothes. Like minded, well educated people. The list just kept getting longer.

Geralt had to keep him happy.

More than that, he’d have to keep him safe. The path was dangerous, no place for an Earl’s son who’d only known luxury. He understood Jaskier had been at Oxenfurt, so he must know something of the world, but only of the academic world. He’d studied literature and music, what good was that for a witcher’s companion.

He liked Jaskier. It would be hard not to. But would he like him on the Path, as a constant companion? Another person to look after, another mouth to feed. He liked Jaskier, but he also barely knew him. He knew he was young, thankfully unafraid of witchers, but could he fight? Would he do as he was told? 

And Geralt would be around him all the time. 

Geralt didn’t like being around anyone All. The. Time.

He needed space even at Kaer Morhen, sometimes disappearing into his room all day, or if the weather allowed just taking Roach into the forest for a day.

Eskel was beating the stiffness from Geralt’s muscles again, the evening of the day before the wedding, and said quietly, in between vertebrae numbing digs,

“You ever think all that worrying will be a self fulfilling prophesy?”

“Hmmm...OW Eskel the fuck!”

“Listen, first of all I didn’t even do it that hard. Geralt, you’re my brother, and I know you better than anyone. You get all trapped in your head, and you worry, ‘cause you don’t understand people. You think you’re different.”

“I am different.”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Eskel said, popping Geralt’s back with well placed pressure. “You’re different, okay. I don’t know what all they did to you with that extra trial. I don’t think Vesemir knows, really, no one does. But I remember you before, alright? You were like this before. It isn’t a bad thing, some people just don’t always get other people. Jaskier does though, allow him to understand you, don’t try and understand him all at once.”

Eskel finished the massage with a truly bone-wrenching press. “I think you could be really good for each other, just don’t...don’t go and mess it up just because you think you shouldn’t have something good.”

“Hmmm.”

Geralt woke up on his wedding day feeling hungover, except he hadn’t been drunk last night. 

Eskel didn’t look well rested either, although he had a sort of stupid grin on his face. Mabel had been by a few times in the past days, and Eskel at least was having the time of his life. 

Judging by the scratchmarks she’d left all down his back, she’d been having the time of hers as well. 

Geralt sunk into the bath, which had been tepid by the time the tub had been lugged up and servants had filled it with water. Igni took care of that, and Geralt sat and steamed behind a little standing wooden panel that the servants had also brought. 

The little modesty panel room divider had been a source of some amusement for the witchers. Body shyness was bred out of witchers before it had time to form. Lambert did comment, however, that it would be nice not to have to watch Geralt sit and cook in the bath like a boiling potato.

Rosewater had been put in the bath, not much, and it wasn’t a strong scent, but to witcher senses it was heady. 

Geralt scrubbed his hair. Then Vesemir scoffed and told him he was too gentle. Vesemir practically beat his scalp into submission.

Geralt had a gold doublet and he felt like a ponce. Lambert insisted that he couldn’t wear black to a wedding, and certainly not his own. Geralt wanted to protest, but he couldn’t, not really. None of the wolves were wearing black, and if the occasion had pried black from Vesemir, then it really was time for colors.

Lambert was in a mahogany brown-red, and looked almost dashing, if a little rougish. Eskel was in dark green, he looked good, too. If Maybel was serving at the wedding there would almost certainly be some appreciative remarks. Vesemir was wearing brown. If he couldn’t wear black, Geralt supposed a neutral color was the next best thing. 

It was still inexplicably a party brown. There was some quilting on the sleeves of the doublet done in a coppery thread and, all in all, Vesemir looked as festive as Geralt had ever seen him.

Geralt didn’t look festive, he looked like Midas had touched him, then, when apparently that wasn’t enough, covered him in glitter and embroidery. The wedding was to take place outside, and Geralt wondered if he wouldn’t blind people. Still, looking at the School of the Wolf, he thought he at least had a rather handsome entourage. 

His face was scrubbed and, short of the miraculous dissapearance of a couple scars, he was as handsome as he could get. Lambert had pulled his hair back with a couple braids. Also, in Geralt’s opinion, poncy, but he’d seen a few of the other nobles in a similar style so perhaps he’d best leave it to fashion and not put up a fuss. 

They were lead by a footman, more a foot boy, with a face full of freckles and unfortunate ears, to a garden. It was probably a bower but Geralt didn’t know about horticulture. Trees had been planted and then twisted by someone dreadfully patient into a sort of cathedral of arching limbs. Spring meant flowers, and they were everywhere. The trees were the flowering sort, almond trees with fragrant blossoms. Delicate petals had fallen to the ground in a sort of pale carpet. Every time a breeze blew a few more drifted to the ground like spring snowflakes. Smaller, brighter flowers abounded near the edges of the manmade clearing. Their perfume was giving Geralt a headache, but he couldn’t blame the knee-knocking terror on them. 

Little stone benches had been arranged in rows, but were empty as of yet. Vesemir sat in the position traditionally meant for the father of the groom. Eskel was best man, with Lambert beside him as the other groomsman. 

And they waited in silence, blossoms falling around them as Geralt’s knees turned progressively into liquid.

He felt sick.

He might throw up.

The image of stuffing his head into one of the bushes of pink and yellow roses and puking lurked threateningly in his head.

Lambert smirked at him unsympathetically. 

Ladies swept in, dusting petals from benches and hanging little baskets of flowers off the back of the benches. Geralt absently wondered what for, all the while fighting his roiling stomach.

He’d been too nervous to eat this morning, and now he was worried it would growl during the service, but if he ate now he’d vomit for sure.

His flower question was answered when a broomstick-think lass came up to him with a basket in hand and nervously proffered a little twist of flowers. He took it, baffled, one of the funny pink and yellow roses, something purple, a bit of greenery, and a couple almond blossoms. He glanced at Vesemir, questioningly, who pointedly stuck the flowers in a decorative slit in his doublet. 

Next to him, another girl nudged the skinny, nervous one out of the way. He recognized Mabel. She gave him a cheerful grin.

“Switched places with Leeann for the day,” she whispered to Eskel. One of her hands slid slowly up his chest, wrapped in green silk. “And I’m so glad I did.” She stuck the boutonniere into the collar, his doublet lacking anywhere else, and sent him a wink that, in more conservative countries, got women jailed.

Past Eskel, the nervous girl was holding flowers out to Lambert. They shivered in her grip. Instead of the vicious grin Geralt expected, Lambert gave her a polite smile and an attempt at a courtly bow. She scuttled off and he tucked the flowers into a small pocket on his doublet, looking at his brothers and shrugging.

Geralt looked at the twist of flowers in his hand. They seemed very easily bruised and broken in his hand. He didn’t have anywhere to tuck them. 

Eskel came to the rescue.

“There’s a little slit here somewhere,” he said, poking at the embroidery on Geralt’s chest. He found it. “Ah, here we go, just stick those in there.” Geralt did. “You almost look presentable.” Eskel said, not totally unkindly. 

Then he must have seen the raw terror in Geralt’s eyes. 

“It’ll be fine, brother,” Eskel said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You look good.”

Eskel stepped back into place, sending a wink towards Mabel, lined up near the back with the other housemaids. 

Guests slowly filtered in. 

There were more jewels and crystals about the throats and in the hair of the ladies than Geralt had ever seen before. Geralt felt a little better about his golden doublet, because there wasn’t an outfit on the benches that didn’t glitter. 

Then a couple minstrels struck up a sweet, simple tune, and two little children entered. A girl in an almond blossom crown was scattering pink petals on the already well-petaled floor. She was so sweetly serious about her duty, solemnly distributing the petals, that coos and chuckles filtered through the crowd. The little boy was holding a cushion with wedding bands. 

Geralt cursed mentally and began to panic. He’d left Jaskier’s mother’s ring in their rooms. It was too late to get it. He felt even more sick. Vesemir gave him a worried look and Geralt took a deep breath. They could always swap the ring out later.

A young woman in a pale blue dress entered, holding a small bouquet of the white almond blossoms. She was followed by another young woman, in the same dress and a very similar bouquets. Bridesmaid’s Geralt supposed. One of them reached down and took the hand of the little flower girl. The ring bearer, slightly older, stood without a hand, but fidgeted. Geralt could sympathize.

The music changed.

A slow processional began and a hush fell on the crowd. The Earl stepped forward, Jaskier on his arm.

The earl wore grey, like a dove, but Jaskier.

Jaskier.

Well.

Wow.

He wore pearly white, with a crown of almond blossoms and roses, and every inch of his doublet was covered in tiny, delicate seed pearls. In this beautiful bower, with delicate flowers all around, he looked like the spirit of this place. Like a dryad made of almond blossoms and sunlight. 

He was beautiful. Truly breathtaking.

He wore no boutonniere, and his hands were free of bouquets. Geralt’s stomach chose this exact moment to remind him that he really, really wanted to throw up right now. His head pounded and his knees felt weak.

He vaugely registered the slow procession being brought up at the rear by a priest in white. Next to Jaskier the white looked dull and lifeless as the priest took his place.

“Who gives this man,” the priest croaked.

“I do,” the earl said, linking Jaskier’s hand with Geralt’s and sitting in the mirror of Vesemir’s position. 

Geralt looked at that hand, so delicate in his giant paw. He thought of the flowers tucked into his doublet, so easily crushed. 

The priest was saying something about eternity, but Geralt’s blood was rushing in his ears. Jaskier was looking at him too, but Geralt’s gaze was locked on their hands. 

Vows were said, and Geralt was lucky they were short. 

“From this cup we shall drink,” Geralt repeated, taking a sip of wine from a goblet that appeared out of nowhere and handing it to Jaskier. 

“And we shall share this wine as we share our lives,” Jaskier said, taking a sip.

“All the days of our lives,” the priest said, taking the goblet.

“All the days of our lives,” Geralt and Jaskier said in unison. Their eyes met for the first time, and Geralt’s stomach protested. 

“Have you the rings” intoned the priest. The little ringbearer stepped up. Jaskier took a wedding band and thanked the boy with a smile. Eskel nudged Geralt and palmed a ring into his hand, Jaskier’s mother’s ring. 

The ringbearer took this well in his stride and went back to his place. 

Jaskier smiled up at Geralt, then carefully slipped the little golden band onto Geralt’s finger. Geralt gulped, Jaskier’s smile slipped a little, looking concerned, and Geralt wondered what he’d seen in his face. 

His big fingers fumbled a little with the delicate ring, but he slid it into place on Jaskier’s finger. It fit as exactly as it had in the little study, which seemed very long ago now.

“You may kiss the groom,” said the priest. 

It felt like a badger was gnawing Geralt’s intestines. He slid his hands hesitantly around Jaskier’s waist. The young man’s arms wrapped around his neck. It would have been nice if Geralt wasn’t so nauseous. 

Geralt gave Jaskier a peck. 

He pulled back and caught Jaskier’s disappointed look, but then they were being ushered back down the aisle and into the hall and there were congratulations. Bells were ringing, people were throwing rice, Geralt’s head was pounding like his brain was about to leak from his ears. 

Out on the steps of the chateau they were handed plates, most of the wedding party were, and they smashed them on the ground, to the misery of Geralt’s poor head. 

Jaskier seemed to be having a wonderful time, laughing as the porcelain smashed and shining even brighter in the bright sunlight on the steps. Geralt longed for the dimmer lighting of the glade. Jaskier kept looking over at Geralt, and the laughter in his eyes kept dimming. 

It made Geralt’s ribs ache to see. He knew he must be scowling, but the thought that Jaskier’s day was being ruined by him was awful. He wasn’t an ideal husband but surely he wasn’t that bad. It definitely didn’t bode well.

The tide of people bore them into the great hall, and they were sat at the front table with the earl and Amaria. Vesemir and Geralt’s brothers were at another table and Geralt felt very alone. 

“Is everything alright?” Jaskier asked, leaning in close to whisper in Geralt’s ear.

“Headache,” Geralt grunted. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier said, rubbing his thumb over Geralt’s wrist. On his finger, the opal caught the light. The young man’s shoulders slumped a little. “I’m sorry too that you’ve been roped into all this,” he released Geralt’s wrist. “I know this isn’t your choice.”

It wasn’t Geralt’s choice of course. But if he was getting married, Jaskier didn’t seem like a bad husband. There was something in Jaskier’s eyes, though, a sort of wistful distance. It occurred to Geralt that Jaskier was in this arranged marriage too. This wasn’t his choice. From what he’d said before, the viscount had probably grown up believing he’d be able to marry for love, or at least someone he liked and was of suitable social status.

Geralt wondered if the young man wasn’t looking around at his own wedding, wishing love were the base of it after all. True love, a smile during the procession, giggles during the ceremony and little jokes and kisses during the reception, instead of a witcher with a headache. 

It occurred to Geralt that he didn’t know if Jaskier liked men at all. Perhaps he was looking around wishing some pretty noble lady was wearing white instead of he. 

Clanging started up as first one, then many people tapped spoons to glasses. 

“They want us to kiss,” Geralt said numbly.

“Yes,” Jaskier said, turning towards Geralt and leaning in. At least he didn’t seem to horribly mind kissing men. Geralt rested a hand, the one towards the audience, on Jaskier’s face, hiding the view of their lips. Then he leaned in and kissed the air less than a centimeter from Jaskier’s mouth. 

It satisfied the crow, but Jaskier looked unhappy as he pulled back. Had he minded the play acting? Did he just want Geralt to let them ring the glasses indefinitely? Had Geralt crossed a lining, even pretending to kiss him. Jaskier stared at his lap.

Geralt stared at his own.

They both picked at dinner. Sounds swirled in Geralt’s ears.

“Geralt.”

He wouldn’t have heard it but for his enhanced hearing. To anyone else it was just another murmur of conversation, the susurrus of the ballroom. Geralt looked up, to meet eyes with Eskel. 

“Geralt,” Eskel said. “Don’t mess it up, you deserve nice things.”

Geralt nodded, and Eskel broke their locked gazes. 

Some of the headache had subsided by now, and it was too late to be nervous. He took a big swig of the wine. 

Jaskier may not have wanted to marry him, may be dreaming of a different wedding day, but Geralt could still make it memorable. He took another swig of the wine and wished it were stronger.

Dancing hadn’t been planned, but there was music and a clear space between tables. Geralt stood and took Jaskier’s hand, giving him an only slightly wan smile.

Jaskier looked baffled, but followed Geralt to the impromptu dancefloor. The minstrels picked up on what was going on, and a rather cheerful waltz was struck up. 

Geralt wasn’t much of a dancer, but he’d been taught the basics long ago, and Jaskier was an excellent partner. His skill made up for Geralt’s more clumsy footwork. Geralt slid his hands to Jaskier’s hips, keeping his grip firmly appropriate, then lifted Jaskier into a swirl he’d seen once before at a ball he’d been forced to attend.

In that case, the lady’s skirt had swirled and swished most attractively. Here, Jaskier’s slightly wilted flower crown came off, but Jaskier was laughing, head back, the sound like sunshine. The crowed oohed appreciatively at the display and Geralt guided his new husband down to the ground again.

Jaskier’s fancy footwork saved them from stumbling into one another but Geralt wasn’t paying attention. He’d saved Jaskier’s wedding day, or at least he hoped, this portion of it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw motion, Lambert flinging the recovered flower crown to Geralt, who snatched it from the air and placed it firmly back on Jaskier’s head, to applause. 

More couples joined the dancefloor, and soon it was pretty crowded. Jaskier led them back to the head table, giggling a little. 

The earl wasn’t dancing, and Amaria looked wistful, or perhaps just distant, it was so hard to tell with her.

“Look,” Jaskier whispered, pointing surreptitiously at a couple. It was Eskel. Geralt half expected him to be dancing with Mabel, but she was busily serving tables.

Besides, Geralt reflected. Theirs wasn’t a romance, per say, more simple physical appreciation.

No, Eskel had the little flower girl standing on his boots, and was happily spinning them about the dancefloor. He took great, hopping steps that bounced her, about, holding her hands gently to keep her grounded. Geralt listened carefully and, in the din of the hall, picked out her delighted, pealing laughter. 

Lambert liked dancing, and Geralt carefully pointed him out to Jaskier, as he showed the shy, thin housemaid how to do one of the fancier spins. 

Jaskier seemed to delight in the people watching, and they chuckled together at the couple, a very large, glamorously dressed woman with her small, slim beau. She whirled him about, sometimes holding him entirely off the ground. 

“He doesn’t seem to mind,” Jaskier said.

Geralt looked at the man’s expression as he was crushed against a frankly enormous bosom. It looked blissful. “No, he certainly doesn’t.”

Vesemir approached their table.

“My congratulations,” he said to Jaskier. He gave a handshake and then pulled the lad into a warm hug. “Welcome to the family,” he whispered. 

“A fine party,” he then said, to the earl and Lady Amaria. “If you do not care for dancing,” this was adressed to the earl. “Would the lady perhaps wish to join me for a dance?”

“By all means,” said the earl, waving Vesemir away. Lady Amaria smiled absently and limply took Vesemir’s hand. 

Geralt knew trading dances was usual, but he was curious to see his mentor dancing. As he watched the couple, he saw Vesemir conversing with her ladyship, whispering into her ear. Even Geralt’s advanced hearing couldn’t catch the words.

After the dance Vesemir returned Amaria to her seat. Perhaps it was a fluke, but she looked more alert. Then the earl tapped his knife to his crystal goblet. 

It had the same effect as a drop of ink falling into clear water.

Silence spread through the hall, twisting between couples and cruling around tables until everything was still.

The earl stood. 

Like his son he was a fairly tall man, and in the grey, with his steely eyes and sharp demenour he didn’t just command attention, he demanded it. He got it, too, as men rich enough to have dungeons in their basements tend to.

“I wish to make a toast to my son,” he gave a smile like a stiletto. “And his new husband.

“Before, witchers have been seen as wicked mutants, monsters,” a tiny pause, like the glint of a crossbow bolt. “Butchers.” 

Unease was in the hall, and there was something in the earl’s voice, he was a truly charismatic speaker. And a dick. 

“Long has it been known how they viciously kill, dismember, and pillage.”

“No,” Jaskier whispered under his breath. The words had really set the cat among the pigeons. A few short sentences reminded the crowd of their distrust. The flower girl, still standing next to Eskel, was ushered away from him. Lamberts dance partner was edging away.

“Of course, not anymore,” the earl continued, snakelike. “And it behooves us to make a contract, that so long as they act appropriately, they are to be treated as other migrant workers.”

Damn, Geralt thought. Migrant workers weren’t treated that well, and after this speech...well. 

“It brings me great joy to marry off my only son,” the earl gripped Jaskier’s collar and hauled him to a standing position. “Although many of you know, he is more of a daughter,” here the earl gave an unpleasant chuckle. “And a troublesome one at that,not much of a warrior, too headstrong for knighthood...but today he sacrifices for his people.”

The earl’s voice swelled, an impressive, ringing oration, like a good preacher ringing home the moral point. “He sacrifices much, and it is sad, I am, that I may never see my son again, to submit him to the ravages of a witcher,” a vicious breath, “’s lifestyle.”

Lambert looked murderous, Eskel betrayed. Vesemir’s face was entirely impasive. Granite. Unreadable.

“But we each make sacrifices for the greater good, and I place my faith in our people, as I have always done. My, admittedly troublesome, shameless son has become part of a new...family.” Family was said like it poisoned the tongue. “And my people become my children. I work for your benefit, my beloved subjects, and today, so does my son, Julian. Three cheers for the new couple!”

Three very hesitant cheers were given, then Geralt and Jaskier were very nearly pushed into a room.

“What the fuck?”

“Evil, stupid, bastard,” Jaskier cursed at the same time. 

Jaskier looked furious, but there were tears in his eyes.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, crossing to the young man and guiding him to sit on the huge, lavish bed. Their marriage bed, Geralt supposed. “Jaskier I don’t understand, what was all that.”

“He couldn’t resist humiliating me, his last chance, I suppose,” Jaskier said, pulling off his boots. “But it’s worse what he did to you lot.”

A tap at the door. Geralt opened it hesitantly, but it was the wolves, and there was fire in Vesemir’s eyes.

“I didn’t know,” Jaskier said, looking up at Vesemir pleadingly. “I swear I didn’t know what he would do.”

“I understand lad,” Vesemir said, but the fire in his eyes didn’t bank. At least it wasn’t directed at Jaskier, who looked positively wilted.

“I don’t,” Geralt said. “He said, some awful stuff, he referenced Blaviken, I get that, but what does it mean.” 

“The common people don’t know the specifics of out contract,” Jaskier said. “Most of them can’t read, and they’ll never see the document in any case. He implied that you’re going to...well, that ravaging bit, he implied that there is a consumation requirement, and the rumors about witchers...”

“Ah,” Geralt said. The rumors about witchers were never kind, what they said about their sexual interests he didn’t know, nor cared to find out, but they wouldn’t be kind. 

“I’m rather well liked by our people,” Jaskier continued, tearfully. “Father’s convinced most of them that I’m simple, but I make a point to be kind and a kind reputation goes around. They’ll hate and fear witchers even more.” He began to cry in earnest, not loudly, but hot, angry tears rolled steadily down flushed cheeks.

“Worse, now,” he said, looking up at the witchers. “He’s some sort of martyr, sacrificing his son to keep the horrible witchers at bay.”

“That’s not even what he said!” Lambert exploded. He’d been fuming this whole time, but his temper was short and he was done.

‘No,” Eskel said. “But that’s what rumor will make of it. He’s going to be seen as some sort of a self-sacrificing hero.”

“He’ll probably use it to raise taxes,” Jaskier said, damply. “And I doubt witcher treatment will get better either.”

“But then, is the contract void?” Geralt asked. 

“Not officially,” Vesemir grumbled. “Improved conditions hold de jure, but not de facto.”  
Jaskier shivered. “If the contract is voided everything will only get worse.” The witchers looked at him. “Whatever reason the contract becomes void, Father will say I was mistreated. That’d be enough to convince most of the country to go to war with witchers, all witchers.”

“It wouldn’t take much,” Vesemir mused.

“And I’d be a ruined woman, except that I’m a man.”

“What?” said the witchers.

“I’d have been married,” Jaskier explained, fiddling with the ring. “And no matter the situation, in Lettenhove the woman is almost always blamed for the failure of the marriage. There is no woman in our marriage, but I take on that role, If I’m mistreated, I should have better pleased my husband.”

“That’s idiotic,” Lambert said.

“I’d never be married off again either,” Jaskier continued. “Not only was I ruined, I was ruined by a witcher.”

A deep, heady pause.

“I could probably even be put to death, for failing the contract and shaming my father.”

‘But your people like you,” Geralt said. 

“They won’t if I’m the reason we go to war with the witchers,” Jaskier said. Then, a little more brightly, “At least whatever happens, I wont be an earl. My father may be a rat bastard and a small minded pig and a...” he paused searching for more insults.

“A cunt?” offered Lambert. 

“Yes, thank you, a cunt. But he’s right about one thing, I’d be a very poor earl. No head for politics, I can understand it, I just can’t do it.” He looked up at the witchers apologetically. 

“And now because of me,” he said, “You’ve all been dropped right in it.”

“No worries, lad,” Vesmir said, clapping him on the shoulder in a gesture that made Jaskier’s spine visibly buckle. “We’ve been dropped in it before. As it happens, I may have caused some political trouble for your father all by myself, and it might even be better if we leave a little earlier than planned.”

All the boys looked baffled, but Vesemir looked satisfied.

“Can we leave tomorrow?” Jaskier asked hopefully. “I don’t have much stuff and I want to get out of here.”

The witchers agreed, and then Jaskier and Geralt were left alone with just one bed.

Geralt coughed awkwardly.

“I thought there wasn’t a consummation requirement,” he said.

“There isn’t,” Jaskier said, taking off his flower crown, now quite battered. “There isn’t explicitly, I mean, but there is a hidden fidelity agreement.”

“Hmmm,” Geralt said. He meant a panicky, ‘what!’, but couldn’t say it.

“We both need to be happy in our marriage, if word get’s back to father that either of us is sleeping with someone else, well...”

Shit. Geralt thought. Shit shit shit.  
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said aloud. 

There were no extra clothes in the chamber, meaning no sleep clothes, so they both undressed to undershirts and smallclothes, then Jaskier snuffed out the candle.

On either side of the large bed, there was plenty of room between them. 

Geralt heard a sniffle. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling awkward.

“I’m fine,” Jaskier said. “It’s silly anyway.”

“Can’t be silly if you’re crying over it.”

“It’s just, this isn’t exactly...” Jaskier trailed off, but Geralt thought he had it.

“Isn’t how you pictured your wedding day?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Jaskier sniffled.

Geralt didn’t know what to do, but he stretched an arm out, above the soft covers, and covered Jaskier with an arm. The young man turned over, so they were facing one another, and inched a little closer.

It wasn’t an embrace, not nearly, but it had a whisper of the same emotion.

Geralt listened to his new husband silently cry himself to sleep on their wedding night, and wished there was some way he could help.

A part of him, long suppressed, was crying too, for the bright and cheerful young man in his arms.


	4. In which Geralt fucks up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of BAMF! Jaskier, a lot of emotionally constipated/self flagellating Geralt, some miscommunication, and a secret.

Geralt awoke slowly. The anxiety and excitement of the wedding had taken its toll, and the comfortable bed had enveloped him nicely. There was also the warm, comfortable weight in his arms.

Jaskier.

It was Jaskier in his arms. The young man was curled up, still fast asleep, with his head tucked against Geralt’s chest. Geralt wondered who had gravitated to whom in the night. Had he moved unconsciously to hold Jaskier? Perhaps. Jaskier must have cuddled up to him too, though. There was no other way to explain the way Jaskier’s hand was curled, lightly, around Geralt’s medallion. Holding on to Geralt. On his other hand, the wedding ring glittered.

Used to assessing battle situations, this train of thought happened in thirty seconds or less. His processing was significantly sleep slowed, however, because he finally became aware of what had woken him.

There was a pounding on the door. The urgent pounding of someone who desperately wanted to speak with the occupants but didn’t want to make others aware.

Without other options Geralt gently extricated himself from Jaskier, accidentally waking the young man in the process, pulled on the pants from the day before, and crossed to the door.

It was Eskel.

“What?”

“It’s almost ten in the morning,” Eskel said. “Vesemir wants us to leave really soon. Um, check if Jaskier has people he wants to say goodbye to.”

“Our things,” Geralt began.

Eskel waved a dismissive hand. “Vesemir had them packed up last night, but he really wants us to leave and he won’t tell us why.”

Geralt shrugged, reassured his brother, and closed the door.

Jaskier was sitting up in bed, his undershirt, a large, flowy thing, had slipped off one shoulder. Geralt’s stomach lurched, rolled, and finally curled up. Somehow it wasn’t in an unpleasant way, though. The skin was pale gold in the torchlight. It brought thoughts of sinking his teeth into all that glowing skin, gripping as he folded his body over Jaskier’s and...

Geralt dunked his head in the washbasin.

“Is that an okay temperature,” Jaskier said, slipping on his wedding attire from the day before. “I think it was warmed up for us last night but it’s probably pretty cold by now.”

It was doing exactly what Geralt needed it to, so he just grunted.

“I don’t have anyone I need to say goodbye to,” Jaskier said as Geralt wiped water from his eyes. “We can leave whenever.”Geralt nodded and pulled on his wedding doublet. Jaskier, all in white and pearls still looked like some sort of angel. He took Jaskier’s hand, and they left.

It was Jaskier’s guidance, of course, that brought them back to the rooms that had been for the witchers, and Vesemir was outside the door already.

“Was worried you two would linger,” he griped, but it was good-natured.

“Yeah honeymooners, how’s married life feel?,” Lambert smirked. He had packs over his shoulder, so did Eskel, and Vesemir. Eskel offered Geralt his pack and swords. Geralt shouldered them and took a much nicer pack from Lambert, obviously Jaskier’s. Vesemir picked up a lute from where it had been leant against the wall and Jaskier took it gratefully, a hint of a smile touching his round cheeks.

Then the odd little party left.

After all the anxiety and waiting and intrigue and the wedding itself, just walking down to the stables as an little group felt strange. No one stopped them, though. 

The witcher’s horses had been cared for, but were otherwise untouched. There was a fifth, a black and white stallion, big but not a battlehorse by any means. Jaskier reached forward and kissed it’s muzzle. The horse responded by huffing in the way horses do and tossing his mane.

They mounted up and were off before the bell in the town center tolled eleven. It just didn’t feel real.

“We’ll ride with you to Egerbak,” Vesemir said, naming a town a day’s ride from Chateau Lettenhove. “From there we’ll go our separate ways, not good for witchers to be all in one group.”

“Why?” Jaskier said, looking puzzled. “Wouldn’t it make fighting monsters easier?”

“Sometimes,” Eskel said, “But if the terrain is rough you can get in one another’s way.”

“Get paid less too, the locals think it’s easy and give up less coin,” Lambert said, a little sourly.

“Most jobs need just one witcher,” Geralt said, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “And villagers get edgy if there’s more than that, they fear an attack.” He didn’t mention why. Surely Jaskier knew the reason he was called Butcher. “But there isn’t many of us left, either. We four are all of the wolf school. If there were people who wished us harm, having us all in one place could exterminate our school.”

“That’s horrible,” Jaskier said, blue eyes wide. The color was muted today, Geralt noticed. The sky was overcast and his eyes seemed to reflect the blue-grey light that filtered down.

“Do you think we’re in danger now?” the young man said.

“Depends, do you think your father would send people after you? To kill you I mean.” Vesemir didn’t even raise the question gently.

Jaskier sat, moving steadily astrid his horse, looking straight ahead. After a long moment with just the sound of five sets of hooves he said quietly, “I think maybe we should move a little faster.” He nudged his horse into a canter and fingered his lute strap nervously.

Without further instruction, the witchers formed up. Eskel, keen with magic and with the same good senses of any witcher, rode in front. Lambert, with his predilection for blowing things up from a distance, rode behind. Geralt and Vesemir rode along in the middle, Jaskier between them. He was probably the safest man for a hundred miles.

“You really think he might try something?” Geralt asked quietly. He knew speaking softly wasn’t the same as being tactful, but it was about the best he had.

Jaskier nodded. “It makes sense. If his goal is to start war with the witchers. To say you mistreated me and voided the contract, that’s one thing. But it makes a better story to feed to people if his beloved son is killed the day after the wedding.”

“I just don’t get it,” Geralt said, frustratedly. “Why does he want a war with witchers? I understand he doesn’t want you to be his successor, but he could just disown you, couldn’t he?”

“I was thinking about that,” said Jaskier. “It would look bad if he did, but he could. I think he wants a war with witchers because he wants a war with other countries. Any place that didn’t immediately turn against witchers-- all witchers, not just your school--well, he could declare them an enemy of Lettenhove, which is a big province. That makes it an enemy of Kerack and then Kerack goes to war with anywhere that decides they need someone to fight their monster problem.”

“That’s...” Geralt said.

“Despicable?”

“Well, yes, but I mean, it’s a lot to comprehend,” Geralt said. He felt a little at sea. This wasn’t his job, all this, this politics. He was a witcher. Find monster, swing sword, kill monster, get coin. That was what he did. Alliances and assasination and wars and marriage, they weren’t supposed to factor in.

“Yeah.” Jaskier said. 

They rode on, safe inside the wolf school’s formation. After perhaps a quarter of an hour Jaskier slung his lute around and began to pick at it idly. It had a case, but he’d tied that onto his big stallion instead. Apparently he liked having it available.

“Why does he want a war?” Geralt asked after a little longer. “What does your father get out of it?” 

Jaskier stopped plucking. “It’s part of the earl thing, in his case the position has a lot to do with finances and the kingdom’s treasury. Wars mean finances are more important, which makes him more important, and he get’s more power.”

“All of this is just a power grab?” Geralt said. “That’s daft.”

“That’s politics,” Jaskier said, a tad tiredly. “He probably thinks he could be made a duke. And yes, daft is a good word for it all.”

After that they just rode, stopping only briefly for lunch and to rest the horses. Jaskier played his lute quietly, most of the journey. At one point he pulled a notebook and charcoal stick from his bag to jot things down and muttered as he played.

Geralt had no idea if the lad’s music was impressive, but he was impressed with how he sat a horse, multitasking as if he was part centaur. He did most emphatically not think about how nice Jaskier’s thighs looked in the clothes he’d changed into at their lunch stop.

The wedding attire was very fine, but Jaskier looked somehow...right in the clothes he wore now. Blue trousers of fine but durable material and a white chemise under a blue doublet. He’d asked if he should wear the basilisk leather, but Geralt had shook his head. It was a fine spring day and basilisk leather kept heat like a fur coat, he didn’t want to cook his husband before they’d been married a whole day.

And wasn’t that a thought that clanked about in Geralt’s head. Husband. Husband husband husband husband husband. They were married and Geralt had a husband. Who was nobility. And Geralt was his husband.

And Geralt kind of wanted to kiss his husband.

That was his problem, however, not Jaskier’s. Whatever the damn ‘implied hidden fidelity clause’ said, Jaskier was free to sleep with whomever he chose. Why would any young man, in the position to choose, pick a scarred witcher, the Butcher of Blaviken? Who could choose Geralt?

Geralt suddenly felt very bitter, for himself and on Jaskier’s behalf. Neither of them had asked for this, and the witchers weren’t even going to get anything from it. Now he had a husband, a semi-disgraced noble, who apparently had musical talents. Bardic? Geralt didn’t know but it seemed...right. 

Regardless, he needed a place to drop Jaskier off. Somewhere safe. It couldn’t be claimed he mistreated the man if they weren’t together. That way, Jaskier couldn’t...

Couldn’t what? 

Geralt had never before actually contemplated all the ways a normal human could be hurt on the Path. Witchers, sure, he knew about that but humans were delicate. Geralt had been told once that you shouldn’t just eat rabbit because it...it did something and you would get sick. Or maybe starve? Because the meat was wrong somehow. Too lean? Not lean enough?

It didn’t matter because he wasn’t a human. He remembered a dreadful three weeks when coin had been lean eating just rabbit and he’d been fine. Jaskier might not be. Geralt hardly earned enough coin for himself how was he supposed to feed and protect them both. 

Not to mention things like sleeping rough and rainstorms and all the little pitfalls of traveling.

It had seemed fine in theory before. Jaskier would have his basilisk leather and would stay at camp but now reality was setting in. 

Tired from the road, the whole group spoke little as they set up camp. Geralt pitched the tent that he would share with Jaskier then set up the fire while his brothers put up their own tents and Vesemirs. Vesemir went hunting.

Geralt was almost eighty five years old, and had been hunting for most of those years, but not one of the younger wolves could match Vesemir’s skill. 

Dinner was stew, with meat courtesy of Vesemir. Dessert was no talking at all. This wasn’t unusual at all for the wolves, but Jaskier was looking around nervously. 

“You’re safe,” Geralt said. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Jaskier said. It seemed odd, because he’d been so vibrant and chatty back at Chateau Lettenhove.

“Pass me your dish,” Geralt said. Wordlessly, Jaskier handed him the shallow bowl. Geralt scraped it onto the grass.

“I’m sorry about the whole...assassin thing and, and everything,” Jaskier said after another silent minute.

“Hmm,” Geralt said.

The overast sky finally gave way to the rain that had been threatening all day and with a sigh the witchers each turned in for the night. Jaskier crawled into the tent after Geralt and settled down onto one of the bedrolls.

Geralt went about his nightly routine as if nothing was different, untying his hair and stripping himself his clothes. He felt oddly flattered when Jaskier let out a tiny gasp as he divested himself of his smallclothes. A glance showed him the young man, wide eyed in the dim light, kneeling on his bedroll. 

The tent smelled of lust.

Geralt pulled on the well-worn loose trousers he preferred and nudged Jaskier’s pack at him. The boy took the hint and rummaged in it, pulling out similarly loose sleep pants and changing quickly. Geralt looked away for decency’s sake. They may be married but that was no reason to take liberties. Unfortunately, Jaskier was wearing another loose chemise to bed, and Geralt’s thoughts dragged back to the tantalizing view of shoulder from that morning. 

“Wrap up tight,” he grunted, annoyed at himself for even thinking of that. “If the temperature drops in the night I don’t want to have to deal with you getting sick.”

The lust smell, which had waned somewhat, was entirely gone, replaced with a scent Geralt had smelled on Jaskier before. 

“Okay,” Jaskier said quietly, and tucked himself obediently into his bedroll.

Jaskier smelled sad. Like he had the night before.

Geralt rolled into his own bedroll and cursed himself. Of course the boy was sad. Dragged onto the Path with a husband more monster than man. Boyish hormones made him horny, not any desire for something like Geralt. And he was a boy. Nineteen was legally an adult but it was like...what was the phrase Vesemir had used? De jure is not de facto. Legallity is not truth. 

Geralt listened to Jaskier’s breathing and thought about their ages. Eighty years for a witcher was still considered a mere stripling youth when considered in the course of a witcher lifespan. For Jaskier, though, he would live to be eighty only if he was lucky. On a witcher’s Path he almost certainly wouldn’t be. 

Jaskier’s breathing hadn’t slowed into the deep, even pattern of sleep. Geralt wondered what was keeping him awake. Then again, if he was sleeping beside a monster, he’s lie awake too.

It seemed as though neither of them would ever sleep, both of them laying, inches between them, on their separate bedrolls. Then, between one blink and the next, Geralt must have slipped into sleep.

He awoke to a damp world. It had rained through the night and the rain was still drizzling against the tent when he opened his eyes. The humidity and the little moisture that seeped through the cloth of the tent had built up and everything felt sticky and muggy. 

Although every item of clothing in his pack had been put in dry, almost nothing felt entirely dry as he struggled into proper clothes. Jaskier woke too, blinking his eyes open muzzily and wrinkling his nose at the damp feeling. He also dressed in silence, frowning as he pulled on his clothes. 

There was no dry firewood for a fire and Eskel, gifted though he was with magic, couldn’t make a fire last on soaked wood. The group ate cold rations. Jaskier tried to start up a conversation with Eskel about literature. 

Geralt smiled inwardly, but let none of it show on his face, lest Jaskier think he was mocking him. Eskel, despite the best efforts of everything the wolf school could do, was so far from being a morning person as to be out the other side. He could stay up all night, but wasn’t conversational until nearly noon.

Jaskier looked disheartened, though. Geralt wasn’t a substitute for literary conversation, so he just packed up Jaskier’s horse for him. For some reason, Jaskier frowned at that, but then nodded at Geralt and they all mounted up. 

It was an hour’s ride to Egerbak, where the witchers would part. From there, Geralt thought, mapping the journey in his head, he and Jaskier could turn for Oxenfurt. The journey would be almost a month, and Geralt would have to hunt along the way to earn coin, but Jaskier would be safe there.

While Geralt was musing, Jaskier was trying to strike up a conversation with Vesemir. The old wolf was more of a morning person than Eskel, but not a conversationalist, so Jaskier eventually shrugged a little sadly and pulled out his lute. 

He plucked a tune, editing it again and again until he seemed satisfied. It was catchy, an earworm Geralt was sure would never leave his head. Then Jaskier began to hum.

Geralt himself was very nearly tone deaf, and frankly didn’t like music in most cases, but Jaskier’s voice sounded okay. It was only humming, anyway. 

Geralt’s ears pricked and he saw the shoulders of Eskel, riding point, tense up too. He knew all the witchers had heard the noise. Hoofbeats were approaching fast. Geralt craned in his saddle to see the rider, but could make out little between the rain, which had graduated from drizzle to downpour. 

Vesemir coughed, flexing his hand on the reigns, opening his fist then closing it again. The witchers drew together, closing their formation. To the rider it would likely look as if they merely were drawing towards one another to give him room. It worked to do that, for sure, but it was also a defensive maneuver, trained into them and beaten into their memory. Witchers rarely fought alongside eachother, but when they had to they were prepared. Closing ranks also had the benefit of enclosing Jaskier, like a hand wrapping around a precious stone. 

Geralt’s steel sword had been tied at his hip, and his silver along with the saddlebags. It made him look less threatening, more like a knight errant than someone ready to battle at any time. In truth, the change from being slung at his shoulders was practical. In combat he could draw the sword from his hip and be prepared, rather than having to reach up to draw his weapons. It left him less exposed on horseback. He reached down to his hip and, in a smooth and almost impercepitble motion, flicked the tie open on the sheath of his sword, loosening its hold to make the sword easier to draw. He turned the movement into a casual stroke of Roach’s flank. 

The rider pulled up alongside. “Sir witcher,” he panted, “I must speak with Master Julian.”

Geralt glanced at Jaskier but the boy looked...different. He was sitting his horse more stiffly and looked more haughty and aristocratic than Geralt had ever seen him. Nothing of his clothing had changed, and he was in poor garb compared to the silken doublets he had worn before, but in a second his posture had turned him into the spitting image of his father. 

“Speak, man,” Jaskier said, waving one hand dismissively. 

“You left without your dowry.”

“Dowry,” Jaskier said coldly. 

Geralt felt cold for a different reason. He’d seen a ring on the hand of the rider, the left hand’s index finger. It was large, with a heavy stone. He was a slim young man in the dress of a footman, but something in his build said otherwise. This was an assasin, Geralt would bet his medallion, and the ring held poison, or something equally nasty. 

“I have no need of a dowry,” Jaskier was saying, passing straight through haughty and going for enigmatic without bother to slow down. 

“Your father insisted,” said the assassin, sidling his horse closer. Geralt nudged Roach and she deftly stepped in the way. 

“My father can take back his coin,” Jaskier said, even as the man offered a bag, slightly open to show gold coins. “I am no maiden, and my marriage shall produce no heirs.”

“But--”

“Don’t speak over your betters,” Jaskier said, every words ringing like steel. “A dowry is to set up a household. Well my household, such as it is,” here Jaskier gestured about him. “Is set up. Traditionally, if the wife dies without producing a male heir to the marriage the dowry is returned. I shall produce no heirs, so I’m returning the dowry preemptively.”

The assasin looked truly stumped. “I must give this to you,” he said, reaching forward, across Roach’s rump to hand the bag to Jaskier. Geralt saw the man’s thumb hover over the poison ring, as if about to flick open the compartment. 

“No,” Jaskier said.

“At least dismount so that we can discuss this,” pleaded the rider. 

Geralt looked about them. They’d been riding through woodland all day, but it was dense here, just the place one might lie in wait. Then he saw it, the thing he’d been waiting for since they’d left Lettenhove. A glint of light off of metal in the underbrush. Vesemir caught his eye, he’d seen it too. 

“Melitele help us!” Jaskier cried. “There’s bandits in the woods!”

Geralt saw anger and annoyance flash onto the face of the assassin. “No bandits in these woods my lord, I’m sure,” he said smoothly.”

Geralt knew the plan in that instant. Jaskier would be found dead on the roadside, the rider would stagger back into Lettenhove, or perhaps onward into Egerbak and tell how the witchers had cruelly murdered Jaskier and made off with the dowry, leaving him for dead. These hiddent troops were presumably to subdue the witchers while Jaskier was murdered. 

Finally, Geralt drew his sword.

Damn. If they killed the Earl’s men that would also look bad. 

Jaskier, switching from enigmatic to foppishly distressed. “You simply must turn back,” he was saying to the assassin. “It’s quite alright, I have all these big, strong witchers to protect me, and before I left lettenhove I sent a xenovox message to a mage in Temeria, a friend of mine. I have a powerful protection on me.”

“You do,” the assassin said, edging his horse back a step. Protection spells tended to get messy in a guts and gore way for those who crossed them.

“Oh yes, and my darling husband, isn’t that right, dear heart?” Jaskier said, giving Geralt doe eyes. Geralt blinked.

“Uh, yes, Triss Merigold,” Geralt said, thanking his lucky stars, which most of the time had utterly failed to be lucky for him, that he actually knew a mage in Temeria.

“Merigold,” the would-be assassin said. “The name rings a bell, I’ll just,” and he rode off, back towards Lettenhove. 

Jaskier spurred his horse. “Let’s get out of this rabbit snare,” he muttered. The witchers rode double-time to clearer ground.

“Well,” Vesemir said, once they were well and truly clear. “Quick thinking, lad, and some of the most pretentious acting I’ve ever seen.”

Jaskier bowed in his saddle, smiling like a moonbeam. “Thank you, although I’m just glad Geralt had a real name to back me up.”

“Should do,” Lambert snorted as they rode past the first few buildings of Egenbak. “She practically sewed his guts back into his body after a Striga--”

“Shut up,” Geralt growled, but it was too late. Even in the rain, Jaskier’s eyes were sparkling. 

Greed, Geralt reflected, and indeed, lust, came in many varieties. Jaskier’s father may covet money and power, but the mere mention of a story had Jaskier coveting it just as viciously. What could be so boring, so lacking in a wealthy young man’s life, Geralt wondered, that he was so starved for adventure?

They bid their goodbyes to the other witchers, Jaskier surprising them each with a hug. Vesemir huffed, but Geralt caught the slight upward twitch of his moustache. 

“Fair roads,” Jaskier said, waving to them all. Geralt waved too, and then his brother’s and Vesemir rode away. 

So did Jaskier and Geralt, but it hadn’t been three minutes when Jaskier asked, “Striga?”

“Mmmhm.” 

“What is a striga?” Jaskier pressed.

“Monster.”

Jaskier huffed. “What sort,” he said, with a bit of a whine. “How is one born...made? What does it look like? What does it do? Why have I never heard of one before?”

“Made by magic. Looks ugly. Does messy awful killings. They’re rare.”

“Please, Geralt, tell me the story?” 

Geralt didn’t look over at him. Wasn’t going to. If he caught a glimpse of that face and those eyes pleading he’d give in.

“The rode is going to be awfully boring, Geralt, a story would really help,” Jaskier said, still begging.

“Just focus on riding,”Geralt growled. “I don’t want to have to deal with you if you fall off your horse.” Then he urged Roach on ahead. 

It was indeed a very long and boring ride. After a while Jaskier pulled out his lute and began to play.

“Toss a coin,” he sang quietly, then he changed the cord and tried it again, a little higher. “Toss a coin to your witcher.”

“Don’t make up songs about me,” Geralt growled.

“Short of you telling me stories I have to make things up,” Jaskier said. “I know nothing about you.”

“So you write me a song?”

“I think you deserve one,” Jaskier said, as if his very believing it made it fact. 

Geralt urged his horse on ahead. 

“Come on,” Jaskier said, nudging his horse faster too. “My singing can’t be that bad, can it?” he asket.d lightly.

“Yes,” Geralt growled. “It can.”

They rode the rest of the day without speaking. Jaskier plucked sullenly at his lute. 

Geralt was angry, and worse, he didn’t really have any right to be angry. He knew he’d messed up. Day two of marriage and he’d fucked up spectacularly. He was bad at this, and he was angry at himself. Somehow, though, he felt angry at Jaskier too. What was Geralt supposed to do? Answer every childish question? Tell stories? Discuss literature like Eskel could? Like probably all of Jaskier’s high class friends at Oxenfurt and Lettenhove could?

He was a witcher. Witcher meant solitary. It meant silence. It did not mean infernal music and being pestered about a story like a nanny.

He was being an asshole and he knew it, but damnit, he’d been an asshole so long he wasn’t about to stop all at once. It was practically baked in at this point. Being angry was better than trying to be kind an failing. Silence was easier than speaking.

Jaskier drooped in his saddle though, and Geralt felt like a cad.

They stopped for lunch at the side of the road, eating soggy rations and not talking to one another. They were both soaked to the skin, despite heavy cloaks, which were too hot in this late spring storm. Jaskier dripped miserably and carefully wiped down his lute, putting it reverentially in its case.. Up until that point the instrument had been mostly safe from rain, cradled against his body under the cloak. He’d clearly come to the same conclusion that Geralt had, however, that if the instrument stayed out any longer, cloak cover or no, it would get truly wet. 

“Raining cats and dogs,” Jaskier said, tentatively. It had the same feeling as a man dipping his toe into water to see how cold it was. 

“Hmmm.” Geralt said, neutrally.

Apparently seeing this not outright aggression as an invitation, Jaskier, metaphorically, jumped into the pond. 

“See, I think that saying is really rather silly,” he said. “Not only because it, obviously, doesn’t rain animals, but really, cats don’t even like water.”

He continued chattering as they remounted and rode on.

“Dogs do like water of course, well, some, but so few like rainstorms, especially thunder. I wonder why we have that saying then.”

His mind seemed to skip back and forth between subjects like a grasshopper. 

“I understand why dogs don’t like thunder, of course, and I don’t care for lightning much myself, but the thunder must be so loud with their sensitive hearing.”

He paused for a split second and Geralt wondered if blissful silence would return but then,

“I imagine thunder must be dreadful with your hearing, right?”

“Hmmm,” Geralt said. Shut up, he thought.

“Oh that’s awful,” Jaskier said. “Do you think it will thunder tonight? I hope not. If it does - or perhaps even if it doesn’t - I think we ought to get a room in an inn tonight. Give our clothes a chance to dry.”

Melitele’s tits. Geralt couldn’t believe one man could talk so much. It was almost like nervous chatter but it grated on his already fraying nerves.

“An inn would be perfect don’t you think? And I could play there. I’m a bard you know. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘you’re a Viscount, Jaskier,’ and that’s true, although I suppose not anymore, technically from the moment I said ‘I do’ that honor was passed to my half-brother but, I’m a bard as well.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” Jaskier said.

Geralt pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling as he did so cold water drip from his hood onto his face. “For the love of all that is good just shut up,” he growled. 

“Maybe if you said something back occasionally it wouldn’t be so one sided,” Jaskier said sniffily.

“Maybe if you had any brains in that empty head of yours you’d have something worth while to talk about.”

“I have brains,” Jaskier said, affronted.

“Clearly not enough to know when to shut up,” Geralt sniped back. “I don’t want to have to deal with your incessant chatter all the way to Oxenfurt.”

Jaskier stopped his horse and dismounted, in the middle of the road, in the pouring rain. 

“Get back on your horse, have you lost your mind?” Geralt said, but he reigned Roach in.

“Oxenfurt?” Jaskier said, quietly. His voice held no emotion and Geralt felt suddenly that he had really fucked up this time. He dismounted.

“Yes,” he said. “You have friends there, I thought it would be a nice place to go.” He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell Jaskier that he intended to leave him there, but he felt that, at this time, that wouldn’t go over well.

Jaskier’s face softened. “You thought it would be nice,” he said. “For me to go back there.”

Geralt shrugged. “One destination is as good as the other on my Path, often I just wander.”

Jaskier smiled softly and remounted. “Okay then,” he said. “To Oxenfurt.” He chuckled. “I’m sorry, I suppose dismounting was dramatic, I guess I thought you were taking me somewhere to get rid of me.”

It was like having ice shoved into Geralt’s spine as he mounted Roach again. “I wouldn’t get rid of you,” he said lowly.

“Oh, not ‘get rid of’, like that stupid assassin. I meant...discard, abandon, leave, wash one’s hands of, cast aside.”

They rode on, Jaskier chattered, but less. Geralt didn’t say a single word.

They didn’t make it to a town with an inn that night so they made camp in a soaked clearing again. Guilt ate Geralt as he was eating cold rations and chased him into their tent. He lie awake feeling heavy with it as he heard Jaskier’s breathing drop off.

Jaskier wouldn’t like being left at Oxenfurt, but it would be for his own good, Geralt thought. He didn’t have to tell him right now, anyway. That was a discussion that could wait until Oxenfurt. 

Geralt’s guilt didn’t lift completely, but it eased enough that he slipped into meditation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still pretty sick with mono, so this took me ages to manage, but its here at last! So psyched to write the next part too.


	5. In Which Jaskier Gets...Pointed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little bit of horniness in this, nothing acted upon, but be forwarned, Geralt thinks his bard is hot and vice versa.

The next few days of Geralt’s marriage didn’t fare much better than the first. He and Jaskier were truly an ill match. Sure, the young man was charming, not even Geralt was immune to his wiles, and he was certainly easy on the eyes, but he’d never met someone as annoying as Jaskier.

Jaskier could talk a mile a minute, and the less Geralt talked, the more Jaskier did. This rankled. Geralt had learned that talking less was supposed to encourage less conversation, but clearly Jaskier hadn’t grasped that.

Far worse than the talking was the singing. Singing, humming, tapping, even playing his lute, Jaskier was always doing something. It was like riding beside a musical whirlwind, with the added penalty that at least a whirlwind wouldn’t know lyrics.

It wasn’t totally Jaskier, Geralt knew. They were riding hard to get as far from Lettenhove as possible, and the weather hadn’t let up. It had rained for almost five days, steady, drenching rain, with never enough time to get dry. They went to bed damp and woke up damper. Their socks were moist, their hair sopping. Jaskier was pouting because he couldn’t play his lute and somehow that made him more talkative. Despite the springtime, the rain was cold and sometimes he had to pause mid chatter to shiver. All this, made Geralt’s mood go south. Worse, he always hated parting from his brothers. There were so few of them, the first days without them were hard. 

And he had to deal with some spoiled little rich boy.

That wasn’t being fair to Jaskier, he rarely acted spoiled, not really spoiled. It was, however, intensely clear that he was used to comfort and they were not, right now, comfortable. He didn’t complain too much about things Geralt couldn’t change, like the weather, apart from the odd sniffle about all his clothes being wet. He did beg to stay in an inn though. 

That bothered Geralt too. They really had little money, and here the lad was trying to get Geralt to spend it on something they didn’t need. He’d survived rain before.

That thought gave Geralt pause. Of course he’d survived rain before, but had Jaskier? It was unlikely. Days and nights of being slightly damp and chilly weren’t good for humans, they tended to get things. Like chest infections. And pneumonia. 

Geralt spared a glance at the figure riding, hunched, beside him.

Unfortunately, Jaskier seemed to take this as an invitation. 

“I can’t wait to get to Oxenfurt,” he said. “I have this friend, Essi, I think you’d love her. She’d certainly love to meet you, and she’s quite pretty, so even if you won’t tell me your stories perhaps you’d tell them to her.”

Was there a hint of bitterness there?

“Anyway,” Jaskier continued. “She wouldn’t be frightened of you in the least, I know because one time we were drunk... well, I was drunk and she was tipsy, and this man came up, really rough looking type you know? And I was raised to be polite so I ask him his business...”

Geralt stopped paying much attention. If the bard could manage that much, all in one breath, he was fine. Jaskier continued, all about this Essi character and a man trying to mug them in an alley. Apparently the girl had kicked him in the rattle and flute so hard he’d thrown up.

“And there’s this great pub,” Jaskier was saying, gesturing broadly with one hand and flinging raindrops into Geralt’s face. “It’s called the King’s Boots, dunno why, but it’s got good ale. Like, really good, not the swill you probably get in these little backwater towns. Pretty barmaids, too, if that takes you fancy.”

There it was again, that odd little inflection.

“It took my fancy, when I was a student there, of course. They weren’t terribly interested in me but, well, I began studying there at fifteen. Really, I still had spots. I wasn’t the catch you see before you now.”

Geralt didn’t deign to respond. Whether or not Jaskier was a catch wasn’t something he was going to weigh in on. 

Even if he definitely had an opinion.

That was maybe the worst of it all. In spite of the constant noise and restless intrusion into Geralt’s life and routine, he did like Jaskier. That was good, considering they were married, but he wanted to kiss Jaskier, at least once. Just to try it out. That was bad because their marriage was about a half inch from being a sham. Married in name only.

“What sort of ladies do you get?” Jaskier was asking. “I mean, it’s obvious you never have any trouble finding partners.”

Geralt thought of a woman in the woods, of Blaviken, of blood. 

“Shut up.”

“No really, Geralt,” Jaskier whinged. “I wan’t to know. Queens and mages? Legendary beauties.”

“Prostitutes.”

“Ah, legendary beauties it is then.”

“I don’t know about legendary,” Geralt said, cursing himself as he did so for encouraging this inane line of questioning. “But they were beautiful enough. For a price.”

“Ah the ladies and gentlemen of negotiable affection will forever have a place in my heart,” Jaskier sighed. Geralt wasn’t about to hear Jaskier’s sexual history in any capacity. For his sanity, he decided to shut the conversation down.

“I expect they’re the only ones willing to touch you.”

Shit. That one had been too harsh. He didn’t mean it, surely men and women and people all fell at Jaskier’s feet with even a glimpse of his smile. He must know he’s attractive.

Jaskier barely spoke the rest of the day. He wasn’t even pouting, exactly. Just...quiet. 

They made camp under cover of some trees. The thick canapy leant enough dryness that Geralt could build a big fire and they hung their clothes over some low branches to dry. Out of the corner of his eye Geralt saw Jaskier take the basilisk leather from his pack and stroke a hand over it, which was strange. The material simply didn’t absorb water and needed no care.

Perhaps he just...liked it. It was a nice thought, sitting sort of warm and heavy in Geralt’s stomach, like a good meat pie. Jaskier liked his gift. Of course, he’d known that, back the day they’d met. That actually, apart from Jaskier’s father, hadn’t been too bad of a day.

Geralt thought about that day as he hunted wild game for their supper. He snagged a pheasant, a male, because it was mating season, and remembered how nervous he’d been, how at ease Jaskier had seemed. Perhaps it was because Jaskier had likely always known it would be, at least somewhat, a political match. Geralt had never thought there’d be a match at all.

Back at camp Jaskier had water boiling and was sitting in front of the roaring fire in just his trousers and chemise, even his socks so damp as to need a good drying. Geralt set the game to boil with a few wild carrots for a stew and sat beside him, feeling his hair finally begin to dry.

“This didn’t start out bad,” he said. He meant them, of course, and he meant it as a sort of apology, even if he knew it was woefully lacking. He just didn’t know what to say. Somehow, Jaskier’s mind must have been running along the same track.

It’s alright. You never wanted to get married to me.”

No, Geralt thought but didn’t say. I never wanted to get married. It has nothing to do with you. There’s nothing at all the matter with you. I’m just a grumpy bastard and we’re not a good fit.  
A little voice in the back of Geralt’s head said, ‘you could be. If you let yourself, you could fit’. It sounded unnervingly like Eskel.

The truth was, if it had been anyone besides Jaskier, especially any noble, Geralt may have hated all this more. Jaskier liked nice clothes and clean appearances, but he wasn’t vain. He liked nice things but wasn’t greedy. He craved praise but wasn’t prideful, disliked many things but wasn’t hateful. Compared to the thieving, conniving, small minded nobles Geralt knew, he was unlike them all. 

He was definitely unlike his father. 

Jaskier played his slow tune on his lute. It was comforting and almost familiar, just background music. Geralt stirred the pot, breaking up some larger chunks of meat with the spoon. 

Maybe this would fix some things. They’d be dry, with hot food. That could fix a lot.

“Geralt,” Jaskier asked. “Can I sing?” 

Damn. Well, it was weird the lad was asking for permission, but Geralt didn’t like the idea of controlling the man’s voice, no matter how often he told him to ‘shut up’. Somehow it didn’t feel the same.

“Whatever,” he said.

Jaskier sang lowly, voice pitched at the edge of human hearing. Geralt wasn’t a human, of course, and could hear it clear as day. It was a folk song he’d heard before, a tragedy about a young woman who’s love left and she drowned herself.

It didn’t seem fitting. Jaskier was so lively. Geralt prayed he hadn’t fucked up enought that he’d dampened the bards spirit. 

“Do you know The Chandler’s Wife?” Geralt asked when Jaskier’s song was done.

“That one, with the” Jaskier clicked his fingers three times, mimicking the snapping or tapping that happened in the song.

“Hmmm,” Geralt confirmed, nudging the contents of the pot.

Jaskier began to play. It was a bawdy song, with tapping substituted where innuendo would be. It was simple and cheerful and short, and by the time it was finished they both had steaming bowls of stew. 

“Of all the songs you could have asked for,” Jaskier said, blowing on his stew. “I never would have picked that one.”

“Lambert’s favorite,” Geralt grunted.

Jaskier chuckled. “Makes sense, seems like his sort of song.” He took a large spoonful of stew and groaned in delight. Geralt very emphatically did not pay attention to that sound in any way at all.

“I expect you miss them,” Jaskier said.

“Some,” Geralt didn’t want to talk about it, so he focused on shoveling stew in to his mouth instead. Jaskier got the hint. He just settled one tentative hand on Geralt’s shoulder for a second, then went back to eating. He may as well have pressed a brand to Geralt’s skin.

That night, in their separate bedrolls in mostly dry and fire warmed clothes, Geralt could still feel Jaskier’s palm against him. 

There was another reason, Geralt knew, for his over-grumpiness. It was guilt. Mostly he was alright, but hearing Jaskier chatter excitedly about Oxenfurt and all the things they could do together there...ate at him. 

Jaskier had said he didn’t want to be left. Gotten rid of, had been his phrasing. And Geralt was going to. This rain had just been proof, though. Next time it could be pneumonia or hypothermia. The boy shouldn’t be out here. 

It didn’t help Geralt sleep much better. Jaskier had also used the phrase ‘abandon’. 

\-- -- *-- --

The next village had a monster problem. 

“Drowners, what do they do?”

“They drown people, Jaskier.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes. “No, I meant, what do they look like--”

“Ugly.”

Another eye roll. “And how do they do it. Do they spin like an alligator? Do they sink claws in and pull...?”

“The second one,” Geralt said, sharpening his sword. He figured they were far enough from Lettenhove that whatever political turmoil Vesemir had unleashed wasn’t going to catch them too soon. 

“I can’t wait. Do they have scales? Fins? Are they slimy like frogs?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, finally paying attention. “What do you mean ‘you can’t wait?”

“I get to see you in action! Heroic witcher risks his life for helpless townspeople, it’s all very...Galahad.”

“Galahad?”

“Yes Geralt, he’s only the most famous hero written about in the last three hundred years,” Jaskier said. He was gesturing broadly, the way he always did when talking about literature. Geralt settled in for a rant. 

“You know, ‘my strength is as the strength of ten becasuer my heart is pure,’?” That was Jaskier’s quoting voice.

“Never heard it,” Geralt grunted.

“That’s okay, it’s about this hero who’s good and saves everybody. You’re better than him anyway because you’re real.”

“I’m...better than a mythical hero.”

“I mean...yeah,” Jaskier said like it was obvious. “Everyone knows flaws make a character better. You’re totally hot with a heart of gold, score. Very classic. But also,” Jaskier turned to him grinning. “You’re emotionally constipated and smell like onion.”

“You said heroics a few days ago.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, that’s what’ll go in the songs. Best of all is that you’re a witcher. Nobody likes witchers but that can change. You’ll be a tragic hero!”

“Tragic?”

“That hair is, do you ever brush it?

“We’re getting away from the point,” Geralt said, resisting the urge to swipe his fingers through his hair. “You aren’t going to see me fight.”

“What, you can’t just leave me at camp!”

No, no he absolutely couldn’t just leave Jaskier at camp. There could be assassins, wolves, anything.

“We’ll get a room at the inn.”

“Really? Oh Geralt, a real bed would be so nice, there’s been this crick in my neck, but you’re not leaving me in an inn room either.”

“You could perform.”

“Excellent bait, but no.”

“Jaskier, please. You need to stay in town,” Geralt was pleading. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been pleading. Probably when he was trying to convince Vesemir not to marry him off for the betterment of witcherkind.

“I want to see you fight!” 

“It’s dangerous!.”

“You fight tons of these, right? I’ll stay super far away.”

“You could still get hurt, something goes wrong and you’ll get hurt! Humans are...soft.”

Jaskier tilted his chin up defiantly. Because they were the same height this wasn’t exactly necessary, but it gave Geralt a better view of his simply devastating eyes which was...not helping.

“I have the perfect plan,” Jaskier said. Were there silver flecks in his eyes? In this light Geralt was almost certain there were.

“I’ll stay back,” Jaskier was saying. “Any distance you want so long as I still get a reasonably good view. And I’ll wear the basilisk doublet.”

It was a good idea. Jaskier would stay back, the doublet would keep him safe. 

Geralt might get another chance to be smiled at byJaskier.

Doublets. Doublets, doublets doublets. Think about the doublet. 

“That would only keep your chest and arms safe.”

Jaskier smirked and patted a hand on Geralt’s chest, causing his slow heart to speed up just a little. “Are you going to let a drowner get to me? Get to my head, Geralt? My pretty face?” Jaskier pouted and Geralt’s stomach flipped over.

“Fine,” Geralt grunted. “You can come along.”

Jaskier looked very fine, all buttoned up in his basilisk leather doublet, and he was surprisingly quiet. This area of the forest was silent. and the ground was soft and slightly damp underfoot. They were near the Pontar river, which they would follow the rest of the way to Oxenfurt.

Here and there Geralt could see signs of human activity, but thankfully no humans in the area. Signs of woodcutters, likely the ill-fated ones who’d discovered the drowner’s pond in the first place, were scattered about. 

They came within view of the pond. More swamp, really. It was so covered in green algae that it looked like some sort of oddly paved floor. It was as still as glass. Geralt took Jaskier’s--surprisingly strong--shoulder in one large hand and steered the boy to a log that he deemed was sufficiently far to be safe. Then he drew his sword.

Drowners weren’t hard to fight, and here in this little pond there were just two, skinny and hungry. Geralt felt relief flood him as he realized that he wouldn’t even need his potions. He didn’t want Jaskier to finally understand what a monster he was. Geralt was enjoying putting off that realization as long as possible. He was also enjoying being a noble hero, likened to this Galahad character, who sounded alright if a bit boring. 

Geralt rolled his shoulders. He didn’t need to, but it looked nice and Jaskier was looking. The first drowner was close, now, trying to sneak through the algae, but Geralt’s vision was much better than its. He waited until the wretched thing lunged. 

The slash of the drowner’s long claws missed Geralt narrowly, but he hadn’t been worried. He pivoted, working on years of instinct. This was who he was. Here he was on much safer ground than with courting and castles. He was a witcher, and fighting monster’s was what he was trained, and to some extent built, for. 

The first slash didn’t kill the drowner, instead lopping off the arm that had so recently threatened to claw his eyes out. Then, with a clever twist of his wrist he sent his blade back the other direction, lopping off the head. It had taken all of a second from the point of the drowner’s lunge. 

It’s companion was slinking up, ready to attack as well but Geralt didn’t need time to recharge. His senses honed in, he felt his pupils dilate to take in the low light coming between the trees and he leapt.

No normal man could have made the leap that sent him over the drowner’s shoulder and onto the shore behind. It hadn’t been the full length of the pond, but rather a diagonal leap that gave him just enough time as the creature spun around. Geralt brought his sword down and cleaved the thing in two.

“Holy shit.”

Geralt looked up, not even breathing hard.

Jaskier was still in his spot on the log. Unlike Geralt, he was breathing hard. There was a flush across the tops of his cheeks, pretty and pink, and his eyes were wide. Even from his spot across the pond Geralt could see the dark pupils and the blue of his irises. 

Gerals severed the heads and warned Jaskier that he was removing the brains for his potions. His response was a squeaked ‘okay’. 

Damn. Had he scared the lad? He didn’t smell scared. Geralt wasn’t sure what Jaskier did smell like. 

He took the brains quickly and packaged them, then slung the heads of the drowner’s from Roach’s saddle. 

Thunderbolt, Jaskier’s horse, had been left at the inn. Inaccurately named, the creature, despite his large size, was docile, gentle, and prone to startling. 

Geralt dipped his hands in the scummy water and dried them on his pants to at least get off the worst of the gunk.

“Well?” he asked Jaskier.

“Wow,” the man said, stepping closer. “That was quick, too.”

Geralt grunted. “Only two.” He didn’t bother mounting up, leading Jaskier and Roach out of the forest and back towards town. 

Jaskier’s heart still sounded like it was going a little fast.

“Frightened?” Geralt asked. The lad smelled like adrenaline and...oh.

“No, just...exhilarated I suppose. I’ve never seen a battle like it.”

Jaskier smelled aroused. Now that Geralt had realized what it was it was all he could smell. The scent clogged his nose and set his brain in a pink, fuzzy cloud. Did Jaskier think...? Would he want..?

Except, of course not. Everyone knew you could get sort of adrenaline high. Plenty of young warriors got a little...stiff after a battle. And being nineteen, Jaskier probably got, got in that situation, with a light breeze. 

He was looking up at Geralt like he’d personally hung the moon, though. No one had ever, as long as he could remember, looked at him that way. There is a certain kind of beauty that comes with being kind to someone, Geralt knew. He hadn’t often seen it. Eskel had scars across his face that were frightening even to some other witchers but his friendship and care towards Geralt always blurred those over.

Now, in this fetid, swamp of a forest, Jaskier was developing that special beauty to Geralt as well. 

He was loud and talked all the time, even now that he seemed to have regained his wits he was chattering about what he’d write. His voice sounded less harsh in Geralt’s ears, though. Because Jaskier thought Geralt was special, and that made him special in return. 

They made it back to the inn, with a brief stop at the alderman’s house, muddy to the knee, although that wasn’t new. Geralt was also somewhat bloodspattered, which was horrible and wasn’t winning him favors with the townsfolk. 

“Got a room?” he asked the innkeeper, a bent old man that Geralt could probably lift on one finger. As is the wont of many smart inkeepers, there was a taproom on the first floor of the inn, and he was industriously cleaning mugs. 

“One,” the man said. “One room, one bed. No prostitutes, them ladies’ gotta do business elsewhere.”Geralt nodded and handed over the coin. 

“Bathouse in town?” he asked. They followed the old inkeeper’s directions to the edge of town, near the river. 

“I can’t wait for a good bed,” Jaskier said. “But I think I’m looking forward to this bath even more. I think my dirt has dirt on it, and my hair is disgusting. Yours too, will you let me wash it?”

Geralt wasn’t listening, also looking forward to the bath. He hummed in response.

“I hope it’s hot,” Jaskier continued. “No, hotter than that, I hope it’s boiling. I want to feel like a carrot in a stew pot when I get in.”

“You’d be a turnip,” Geralt said without thinking.

Jaskier sniffed. “And you’d be an onion.”

Geralt almost chuckled at that. The only reason he didn’t was that, at this moment, it was probably almost true. They both smelled pretty ripe. Jaskier had been correct, too, about there being layers to the grime. Geralt could almost peel himself. Like an onion.

“Anyway, I think I’d be something special, like a dash of pepper or, oh! I’d be a tomato.”

That caught Geralt off guard. 

“What.”

“A tomato, when they’re cooked just right so they almost burst when you cut into them and the juice explodes all over your mouth.”

Geralt wasn’t going to think about any juices of any kind exploding all over anyone’s mouth. Especially not Jaskier’s mouth, with it’s pink lips and clever, wicked tongue that darted out from time to time to wet them. 

“Don’t you think so, Geralt, aren’t I a tomato?”

“Hmmm.”

Jaskier did it again! It was liable to take Geralt’s sanity, the sight of him wetting his chapped lips like that. Maybe if he didn’t speak so much, worse, if he didn’t bite those lips so much, they wouldn’t be so chapped. For some reason Geralt had an insane desire to smear ointment across Jaskier’s lips with his own fingers. 

They would feel so soft.

Geralt paid the bath house attendant and they followed directions to a separate area in the low, stone building, where they could strip off and have a sort of sponge bath. This was of course so that they didn’t get dirt and monster guts in the bath, and was done with each in their own little three-walled wooden stall. Geralt had to call for a second bucket of water to get the guts from his hair. 

Sufficiently scrubbed, he stepped out into the main baths. Only then did he realize the crucial fault in his plan. They were open plan baths. Jaskier was beside him wearing nothing but a towel. Geralt, likewise in a towel, began to sweat. 

He kept his eyes firmly forward and cursed his excellent witchery peripheral vision because he could see...see Jaskier. Dark chest hair, soft and slightly damp. The way a droplet of water trailed from the back of his hair and down his neck, wetting tender skin.

Fuck. 

Jaskier walked towards the bath as if nothing was amiss. Of course, nothing was amiss, they were just two traveling companions. Having a bath. For Melitele’s sake they were married, even.

Geralt saw Jaskier’s foot hit a wet patch and the young man’s steps faltered, sliding a little. Geralt caught him with all his witcher speed, feeling Jaskier collide with his chest. Those blue eyes again, and yes, definitely silver in them. 

Jaskier was blushing, whether from proximity or steam, Geralt didn’t know. He leaned in. Jaskier’s tongue wet those inviting lips again. 

“You missed a spot on your cheek,” Geralt said, drawing back. He hadn’t been sure it wasn’t just a freckle, but it was definitely a bit of dirt. Jaskier sighed.

“Better get in and wash it off, then.”

Why did he sound dissapointed?

Geralt looked away as Jaskier released his towel and slid into the water, doing the same and waiting a second until he was absolutely sure it was safe to look. Jaskier had his head tilted back to rest against the floor, where the bath was sunk into the ground. Geralt sat next to him on the little ledge and let the warmth hit his muscles. It wasn’t boiling as Jaskier had hoped, but it was warm and lovely. The day’s fight hadn’t set any ache into Geralt’s muscles, but the days of sitting tensed up about Jaskier had, and he let them drift away.

Next to him Jaskier hummed contentedly and Geralt couldn’t help but agree. They lingered, not speaking, in the warm baths until they were truly pruny. Geralt neatly had to drag Jaskier out, but couldn’t risk Jaskier becoming too drowsy and drowning. 

They toweled off and redressed and were back at the inn in time for supper and for Jaskier to play. 

Geralt sat in the back of the small taproom, glowering about at anyone who looked like they might get close. He would have gladly gone up to their room and not bothered but Jaskier was performing. He couldn’t leave the bard there, where anyone could attack him, or ply him with too much alcohol and rob him or worse. Besides, he was curious.

Jaskier was capable, in an odd sort of way that was so far different from what Geralt was used to, but he was good at things. There was nothing he tried that he seemed to be terribly bad at. Geralt wasn’t a good judge of music, but he wanted to see if this applied to performing.

As he’d suspected, it did. Jaskier was masterful. Not only was his music top notch, but all his energy, the liveliness, the live wire electricity of him was directed when he performed. Normally, all that energy seemed to make Jaskier’s thoughts and actions a little disorganized, almost mess. Here, in this dingy little tavern, it made him radiant. Every eye was watching, every gaze enthralled, at least for a short time. If Geralt’s medallion hadn’t lain still on his chest he would have called it magic. 

It was incredibly sexy. This was Jaskier in his element, fierce and confident and wearing the doublet Geralt had given him.   
That struck a strange little shiver down Geralt’s spine. A piece of Geralt, prancing about, tied to Jaskier. The gift of the wolves of Kaer Morhen shimmered and twisted with his movements, the black pearl buttons catching dim light. Every eye was on Jaskier, some more salaciously than others, but Geralt couldn’t have cared less. He wouldn’t have cared even if someone had kissed Jaskier there and then. Geralt had no claim to Jaskier like that, they were only married in name. But they were married, and somehow Jaskier so proudly wearing that doublet meant more than a kiss ever could.

A little part in the back of Geralt’s brain wondered if he could have a kiss and Jaskier wearing the doublet, but that was silly.

Geralt went out to see Roach briefly when the performance was over. The applause was too much for his ears and his head, but ran back in when he heard the shouts. 

Three men had Jaskier against a wall, looking furious, and Jaskier looked angrier than they were. 

“Let him go,” Geralt growled, hand going for his sword...which was upstairs in their room. 

Fuck.

The men turned to him, all holding knives that were only knives because no one let swords get that jagged. 

“Your whore here,” one of them said with a shrug towards Jaskier. “Was telling us all how we shouldn’t talk shit about you witchers.”

“Yeah,” sneared another man with rotten teeth and even more rotten breath. “Got all righteous.” He stepped forward, raising his knife. “Said we ought to be thankful.

Geralt felt his muscles tense, gearing for a fight he really, really didn’t want to have.

“I think we oughta show you our ‘gratitude’,” said the third man.

“Or I can show you the door to the next world,” a voice purred. It was Jaskier.

“What is poking into your kidney, or thereabouts,” the bard continued. “Is a fish knife, I believe. I picked it up off the table. It’s pretty sharp, so I wouldn’t recommend moving very quickly. I would recommend, if you like to keep living, dropping your weapons, all three of you, and just walking away.”

The man’s compatriots looked at Jaskier in confusion. Jaskier pressed the knife in just a hair’s breadth further. 

“Do it,” growled the man currently held hostage. Three knives clattered on the floor. 

“Very good,” Jaskier purred in a voice that was both menacing and sent electric signals all the way down Geralt’s spine. “I can see you’re the brains of the outfit. Now apologize to my friend.”

“Wha..?”

Jaskier twitched his knife hand. “Apologize. To. My. Friend.”

“I’mverysorrymisterwitcher,” the man said, all in one breath. 

“Good, and?”

“And...and thank you for getting rid of the monsters?” said the man, hesitantly. Jaskier let down the knife. 

“Scram,” he said. The three toughs fled.

“A fish knife?” Geralt asked, trying not to focus on how spine tinglingly sexy that had been.

Jaskier shrugged. “I don’t keep weapons on me usually. Shall we go to bed?”

Bed turned out to be an overstatement. It was pretty much a cot, and a very slim one at that, but neither of them were going to sleep on the rough floorboards so they squished in together. 

Jaskier snuggled up to Geralt with contented little humming noises and laid his head on his chest. In the corner, in the moonlight from the window, Geralt could see the basilisk leather doublet where it lay on Jaskier’s pack. It would be a shame, he thought, wrapping his arms around Jaskier to keep him from tipping entirely out of the narrow bed. To part from his husband in Oxenfurt.


	6. In which Geralt changes his mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: brief discussions of Rape. To skip read up to ran his thumb over Jaskier’s knuckles and after Jaskier paused and Geralt gave his hand a little squeeze. Jaskier’s father is a bastard is all you need to know.

Geralt and Jaskier continued down the Pontar river. It was another two weeks to Oxenfurt, and summer was coming hot upon the countryside. Riding near the river was their only respite from the heat, but it left them entirely susceptible to the flies. It was hot and miserable and they were soaked in sweat. Even dips in the river didn’t bring relief for long because the river itself was fetid and mucky in the shallows and too prone to danger any deeper. 

It didn’t help Geralt’s mood that Jaskier had spent the last half hour finding as many rhymes for “flies’ as he could.

“Lies, pies, cries, surprise, sunrise, blue eyes,” he said cheerfully, despite the wash of sweat on his face.

“Already did eyes,” Geralt grunted.

“Yes, but blue eyes has a different rhythm,” Jaskier said. “Although, I’ve always been rather partial to brown eyes. Not my favorite color of course, but brown eyes are always so charming.”

“Hmm.”

“No opinion?”

“Blue eyes ‘re nice,” Geralt said. It was a new opinion, but growing quickly. Jaskier smiled at him and it was like finding shade in all this heat. 

Geralt was trying, he really was. He couldn’t rib Jaskier like he did his brothers because he had no nuance and Jaskier was all nuance. Jaskier must have levers, buttons, special codes as to what made him smile, what made him sad, but Geralt hadn’t been gifted that information. It was like giving an instruction manual to a man who couldn’t read.

Compliments obviously went over well, but that was dangerous territory. There was a line between ‘blue eyes are nice and your eyes are blue’ and ‘your eyes have become my favorite color and before I didn’t have an opinion’, and it was a line that Geralt was unwilling to cross. Jaskier liked to be engaged about his music, but Geralt’s knowledge there was so lacking as to be nonexistant. They stopped at mid day. It was simply too hot. Thunderbolt’s head was hanging low and Roach wasn’t fairing much better. Even Jaskier’s spirits had dimmed with the heat. 

Geralt looked at the soggy, muddy, fly covered river bank, then into the trees on the other side of the track. Shade would probably do them more good than the rank water, but...he sniffed. He could smell water. Not the river water, but something bright and clean. 

He took Roach’s reigns in one hand and Thunderbolt’s in the other. Jaskier followed without a word. Geralt lead them through sun dappled forest and around fallen logs.

He noticed approvingly that Jaskier stepped carefully around faerie rings. Which was, very Jaskier. Many humans were either supersticiously fearful of the fae or stomped through their rings to prove how un-supersticious they were. Many of those only did it once, though. Jaskier wasn’t like that, he simply accepted that some things required reverence and left it at that. He soaked up every bit of information about every non-human species, if it came to that. He talked all the time but he begged to listen to Geralt. 

On the rare occasions Geralt spoke, Jaskier silenced. He still fidgeted, but that was becoming an endearing constant in Geralt’s life. Jaskier basked in any information Geralt offered. He’d memorized most of Geralt’s potions and all of his signs. The delight and wonder in his eyes whenever Geralt used igni to light a fire or Yrden to trap was so pure Geralt wished he could bottle it up. 

He didn’t want to leave Jaskier. Not yet. He was so young and bright and unafraid. 

Geralt had never been like that, by the time he was an adult he was already jaded, and before that he’d been abandoned. 

And Jaskier had told Geralt he didn’t want to be abandoned. What part of a lordling’s life could be so lonely that he said something like that with such feeling? 

Geralt needed more time to make a decision, that was for sure. He’d been too hasty, deciding as soon as they were married that Jaskier couldn’t handle the Path. The men in the bar a week ago had proved that. Jaskier was tough.

At last, Geralt found what his nose had sensed. It was a pool, spring fed, in a grove in the forest. Jaskier let out a happy little sound and stepped toward it, but Geralt grabbed the back of his chemise, all doublets having been abandoned in the heat. 

Geralt stepped forward and quickly dipped a hand into the pool, swishing it around. Nothing came to the surface, friendly or otherwise. 

“‘s safe,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Jaskier sat on the mossy ground and pulled off his boots. “What were you looking for. 

“Drowners,” Geralt replied, tying up their horses in a patch of grass to graze. “Or water nymphs.”

As he suspected, that made Jaskier’s head whip around. 

“Water nymphs,” he said in awe. Those beautiful eyes were trained on Geralt, who had to hold back a smile. That was exactly the reaction he had hoped for, he’d grown to love having Jaskier’s attention, the lad hanging on everyword.

“Oh yes,” Geralt said, nonchalantly, sitting down beside Jaskier to remove his boots. “Pools like this, hidden beautiful places, that’s where nature spirits find their homes. They’re friendly, sometimes they even lend help, but it’s good to check before bathing in a nymph’s pool.”

“Wow,” Jaskier said, blue eyes still intent on Geralt’s face. “Have you spoken to nymphs, then?”

Geralt nodded. “Water nymphs mostly, they’re easier to find. Dryads and other forest spirits are more wary. If I’ve been called in to deal with a monster then the forest spirits may already have been frightened off to another part of the forest.”

“Dryads can’t go far from their trees, though,” Jaskier said. Geralt raised an eyebrow. Humans were even more skeptical of the existance of dryads than they were of the fae. Very few would know facts about them. Jaskier saw his expression and sighed. 

He dipped his feet in the pool and dabbled them for a moment. It was clear he was thinking how to say something.

“I told you I don’t remember much about my mother, just her hands and the ring,” he held up his left hand so the opal glinted, but didn’t meet Geralt’s gaze.

“She was a dryad,” Jaskier said. “I overheard the housekeeper talking about it when I was, oh, thirteen or so. Father was hunting foxes near our castle, but this lovely woman picked up the fox he was after and started screaming and crying at father.” Jaskier smiled bitterly. “He’s not a man used to that sort of thing.”

Geralt felt he should do something. This was clearly Jaskier baring his soul to Geralt, who was lost when it came to emotions. He took his husband’s hand and ran his thumb over Jaskier’s knuckles. 

“Father took mother as his wife, I don’t know how official the arrangement was, I suspect father forced himself on her and, unwilling to have the shame of a bastard child, paid someone to make it more official later. Anyway, when he found she was pregnant he uprooted my mother’s tree and had it planted in the gardens.”

Jaskier paused and Geralt gave his hand a little squeeze. Jaskier looked up at him.

“You know there’s all different sorts of dirt? Mother was a willow tree, she needed wet, muddy ground and room to spread her roots. She lasted long enough to have me, but she died doing that. Because her tree was dying.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said. Sorry wasn’t a big enough word to fill the huge, aching gulf that seemed to be in the conversation, but it was the only word Geralt had. Jaskier leaned his head against his shoulder.

“I don’t know if all or any of the story is true. It’s just gossip overheard, but there’s a dead willow on the castle grounds and I...I’ve always done better in the sunlight. And I like water.”

With that Jaskier seemed to shake off the melancholy of the last few moments. “And here we have lovely, cool water.”

Without further ado, he began to take off his shirt.

Geralt made a soft, pained little noise that ended with a choking sound. He wanted to turn away but his eyes were glued to Jaskier. 

“What?” Jaskier said, looking at him. “You’re all flushed, are you that much of a prude? We are married.”

Geralt unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth with great effort. “Muuhg,” he said. He swallowed and tried again. “It’s not appropriate,” he said. Unfortunately he couldn’t bring his eyes up from Jaskier’s hairy and surprisingly strong chest. 

“We’re married,” Jaskier said. Then he slipped off his trousers and, in only his pants, waded into the pond. 

Cold water did sound like just the thing. 

Geralt was about to wade after him when he realized that Jaskier’s lack of clothing was, in fact, the right idea. Riding in wet trousers would only put blisters in unfortunate places. He shyly shucked off his trousers and shirt, painfully aware of the livid scars across his body.

He knew Jaskier had seen the scar on his face, but that had been neatly stitched and had healed well, it was barely more than a silver line. Geralt had much worse scars. Rippling, damaged tissue where skin had been rent by claws or talons, bite marks, the spiderwebbing lightning of magical scars. He was grotesque. A patchwork man. Jaskier knew little of this. In almost two weeks of marriage they’d hardly seen eachother naked, apart from the baths, and then they had both kept their gazes firmly at face level. When they bathed on the road, in natural waters, they bathed separately, and they slept clothed. 

Geralt heard a gasp as he stepped into the pond and looked up reluctantly to see Jaskier’s wide eyes. His young husband stepped forward and laid one gentle hand at Geralt’s hip, just above his small clothes.

Jaskier’s eyes were locked on a scar, the clear outline of the mouthful of teeth that had gripped Geralt’s side in an attempt to take a bite out of him. Jaskier looked up, blue eyes full to the brim with worry.

“What happened?”

Geralt didn’t want to tell the story, but Jaskier had spilled the tale of his mother, and that took more bravery than the tale of a few old scars.

“Basilisk,” Geralt said. Jaskier’s face drew tight.

“The one you made my doublet from?” Did you get hurt for me? was left unspoken, but Geralt heard it anyway. 

He shook his head. “Many years ago, maybe my third year on the path. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been, too cocky. Basilisks are very difficult monsters to kill but I thought myself invincible.”

Jaskier traced his damp thumb over the ring of scarring and Geralt had to suppress a shiver. 

“It looks horrible,” Jaskier whispered. Somehow, though, Geralt knew it wasn’t a commentary on his looks, but rather an expression of empathy. “It must have hurt so bad, were you scared?”

Jaskier was looking up at him with those perfect eyes again and Geralt couldn’t lie to him.

“I have never been so frightened,” he took Jaskier’s hand from his scar and couldn’t resist giving it a squeeze before letting go. “I almost died. Basilisks have powerful venom, any human would have been dead in seconds.”

“And you survived,” Jaskier said, in awe.

Geralt inclined his head. “Witcher mutations are powerful things, and I had my potions, which fought the toxin.” He sunk into the water, greatful for the relief from the heat. He hesitated before telling the rest, but Jaskier was always so open and vulnerable, he deserved to be repaid in kind. “I lay on the forest floor for hours, half alive. I prayed to every god or goddess I knew, because I thought I was going to die.”

Jaskier wrapped his arms around Geralt’s neck and clung on, weightless in the water. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he whispered, breath ghosting on Geralt’s cheek and making him shiver. 

“It was a long time ago,” Geralt said, stroking one hand along Jaskier’s back. They were the same size, almost, but Geralt’s hands were large and spanned much of the soft, wet skin. Jaskier was too warm to be clinging on in this heat, but Geralt wished he’d stay like that forever. 

“Still,” Jaskier said, pulling back at last. “I’m glad you’re alright, or else I’d have never met you.” 

Something in Geralt’s battered heart rattled at that. 

Jaskier tucked a strand of wet hair behind Geralt’s ear and said softly, “You are so brave, a real Galahad.”

Geralt chuckled awkwardly. “I don’t think Galahad would have thrown up, like I did.”

“I’m sure he would have, they just didn’t put it in the poems.”

“Useful thing,” Geralt said. “Being a favorite with bards.”

“At least one bard,” Jaskier said, smiling. “All you need really.”

Geralt had to agree, he only needed the one bard.

“Can I wash your hair?”

“What?”

“Your hair, it’s got all bits in it and it looks soft. You said I could wash it at the baths but I forgot.”

“Oh,” Geralt said, nonplussed. “Sure.”

Jaskier climbed out. He’d called Geralt a prude for not looking before, so Geralt allowed himself to look. Unfortunately, that meant he saw. He saw Jaskier’s shapely thighs, well muscled from riding, walking, and dancing. They were glistening wet and pleasantly hairy. 

Geralt promptly decided that he’d had enough of not being a prude and, for his own health, would go back to being very prudish indeed. He focused his gaze firmly down into the pond. 

Jaskier slid back into the water beside him with something in his hands. A comb and a little bottle. He uncorked it. 

“Is this too strong smelling? It’s for your hair.”

Geralt sniffed. It was a strong smell, but not too strong, and not unpleasant. To a human’s senses the scent would probably be mild.”

“’S fine,” he grunted.

“Good,” Jaskier said, busily pouring some into his hands and rubbing them together. “It’s lemongrass oil. Not my favorite, personally. I like chamomile, much more versatile and more mild to smell. This works though, and it’s very good for your hair.”

Geralt relaxed into the familiar pattern of Jaskier’s chatter. 

“I’ve heard it’s very good for a dry scalp,” he was saying. “And since you don’t seem to have any skin care routine whatsoever, this has got to help you.” He dug his finger’s into Geralt’s hair and began to work the oil in. It was as if he’d poured liquid honey into Geralt’s brain.

Jaskier continued talking, going on about soaps and oils and gently working the oil through every strand of hair with great care. It was having the same effect as a large mug of white gull. He felt drugged and wondered if Jaskier’s heritage had somehow imbued him with magical scalp massage skills. Jaskier’s clever fingers rubbed behind Geralt’s ears, in the sensitive hollows of the skull and Geralt had to resist tipping his head back to rest against his husband’s chest. He was being played like a lute. 

With talent like this, he reflected. Jaskier could probably get even him to make music.

Jaskier began working through Geralt’s hair with the comb and Geralt was reminded again of the day he’d met Jaskier. He’d sat on the ground of their quarters with Vesemir battling the knots from his hair. This was about as far from the experience as he could imagine. Jaskier started from the very ends of his hair, working up in small, steady motions. He detangled each knot he came to so gently that one would thing Geralt was a kitten instead of a witcher. Jaskier only stopped when the comb could go through without effort. 

“Alright,” he said, breaking Geralt’s coma. “Dunk.”

“Hmm?”

“To wash some of the oil out, if I do it for you I’ll get water in your eyes.” 

Water in the eyes was the least of Geralt’s worries. As a witcher he regularly found blood, mud, oil, and even toxins in his eyes, but he obediently bobbed his head underwater.

Jaskier was smiling at him when he came up and Geralt felt the tips of his ears heat up. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled. Jaskier’s smile broadened. 

They bathed, taking their time to linger in the coolness. Jaskier hummed that same catchy tune he’d been working on, occasionally singing scraps of the lyrics he’d been working on.

Toss a coin to your witcher. Ye gods, but it was catchy.

They sat at the edge of the pool as mid day turned into afternoon, waiting a little before riding once more in the blazing heat. Jaskier was doing something to Geralt’s hair, but the second those nimble fingers had once again made contact with his scalp, Geralt had become incapable of complaining.

This was a nearly perfect moment. Apart from the heat and the fact that Thunderbolt was currently taking a piss a few yards away, it would have been. Geralt longed for more moments like this, even if the tune Jaskier was humming would surely never leave his head.

He could have more moments like this. He’d definitely been too hasty in deciding that Jaskier shouldn’t travel with him. They hadn’t faced too much danger yet, so Geralt would withhold judgement but...but what if...?

“Would you be alright,” Geralt swallowed. “What if we postponed our visit to Oxenfurt, traveled north for a while.”

“Oh, certainly, I’ve no engagments,” Jaskier said, airily. “Any reason?” 

“‘S summer,” Geralt grunted, trying to keep a moan from escaping as Jaskier’s fingers tugged gently in his hair. “Lot’s of monsters in fields and farms ‘n things.”

“Not to many of those right along the Pontar,” Jaskier agreed. “We could make a sort of triangle, going north then back southwest to oxenfurt when we’re ready.”

Geralt nodded. It was what he’d been thinking. And if they were back at Oxenfurt and he decided that Jaskier was doing well on the path, well, he didn’t have to leave him behind, did he?

They remounted, mostly dried and much cooler. Geralt reached up to pat the back of his head and felt the neat braid in the Redanian style. It was nice, he decided, if a little fancy. It kept his hair from blowing into his face as he and Jaskier turned their horses north.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oop is Geralt figuring it out? Not yet! There’s still a little emotional constipation to go before the, shall we say, emotional diarrhea.


	7. In which Geralt...Tries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops it’s finally here, have a little fluffy protective Geralt. Also come check me out on Tumblr, I'm @pillage-and-lute, because if it ain't broke don't fix it. Everything I post here gets posted there first, and my inbox is always open.

“Geralt?”

“What, Jaskier?” Geralt sighed. They’d been travelling north from the Pontar river and it was still hot. He was sweaty, Jaskier had removed his doublet and undone his chemise woefully low and Geralt’s self control was waning. Worse, Jaskier kept asking questions. 

“Tell me about one of your weirdest contracts.” It was a demand and not a request. Geralt was getting used to this, the constant need for attention and stories. He didn’t want to get used to it because every time he gave Jaskier a story Jaskier seemed to treasure it, locking it away to be used later in song, and he liked that. He liked the way Jaskier begged for his attention. Liked having someone who thought his attention worth begging for.

Geralt wondered if maybe somehow Jaskier had realised that Geralt intended to leave him at Oxenfurt and had made himself more palatable to lure him into a false sense of peace. Now that they weren’t heading directly for Oxenfurt Jaskier seemed to talk even more, which previously Geralt wouldn’t have thought possible. It was getting annoying…ly lovable. Sometimes Geralt wondered what would happen if he stopped Jaskier from speaking by dragging him into a kiss.

“Geralt?”

Ah. Apparently Geralt had taken too long to answer the story command. 

“Hmm.”

“No, Geralt, my dearest, my _husband_ , you simply must give me your greatest exploits! I need material for the next verse in my song, I’ll make you famous, a folk hero, coins will just fall at your feet!”

Jaskier had said husband. Like it was normal. Like it was fine that a young man like him, barely into his adulthood was tied to Geralt. And he was still talking.

“Shut up,” Geralt growled and Jaskier looked directly at him. He was still astride his black and white horse, sitting easily in the saddle, but something in the directness of his gaze made it feel as if they were both standing still. Those eyes…they were reflecting the sky, as they often did, and today the sky was so, so blue.

Jaskier looked at Geralt solemnly, but not sombrely. “I really thought we were getting somewhere,” he said quietly. “I want to know you.”

Ah shit. Geralt felt like a cad. Again. He often did, but Jaskier rubbed his every nerve raw, then soothed it again, like an ice bath after a long training session, hurting and healing.

“There isn’t much to know,” Geralt said. 

Jaskier let out a little breath, a tiny, slightly defeated half sigh, and turned his gaze forward.

That hadn’t been the right thing to say. Geralt could relate to what Jaskier had said, _I really thought we were getting somewhere_. Every time they were getting along, whenever there seemed a smooth spot in their relationship, something roughed it up again, usually Geralt’s complete lack of skill with words. No more. Geralt was a witcher, trained to fight. He was going to defeat married life, beat it senseless and conquer it. He was going to do it right. He just hated that it meant talking.

“I took a contract on a devil once,” Geralt grunted. “Wasn’t a devil.”

Jaskier’s head turned again, true blue eyes wide with both surprise and interest. Geralt tried not to find it endearing that Jaskier hung on his every word, he tamped down on a surprising desire to preen at the attention and continued.

“There were elves, in Posada, that’s where I was. Driven there by the cleansing, starving and living off the land and what food they could steal.”

Geralt glanced at Jaskier’s face, both enthralled and sympathetic to the plight of the elves. His heart must be three times the size of any other man’s to hold that much feeling.

“They attacked me at first, caught me by surprise, but I spoke with their leader, Filavandrel.”

“An elven king?”

“Of sorts.He let me go.”

“Just like that?”

“He said he reconsidered. Witcher’s don’t kill sentient creatures if we don’t have to, he knew that. He told me he hoped that if we met again one day I would not let him down.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That if we meet in battle I don’t kill him, I think.”

“Wow,” Jaskier said, looking down at the pommel. “A strange contract at the edge of the world, a suffering and lost people, the unexpected mercy of an elven king, it’s very romantic.”

“It was weird, you asked for weird.”

“No, it’s definitely romantic.”

Geralt shifted on Roach, who whinnied softly. There was this twisting feeling in his gut when Jaskier called anything he did gallant or romantic. It wasn’t as unpleasant as he thought the feeling ought to be, either. “It doesn’t matter,” he continued. “I tried to tell the villagers what happened, but they all still believed I massacred the elves.”

Jaskier nodded slowly. “I have much respect for Filavandrel, I suspect that many in his position wouldn’t show mercy, but what the villagers believe is what will be in the song.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. It wasn’t a ‘stop talking’ hmm, but rather an inquiry as to Jaskier’s thought process, which the young bard interpreted correctly.

Jaskier tilted his head and smiled and odd, slightly sad smile. “Respect doesn’t make history.”Jaskier began to play, fingers plucking nimbly across the strings in counterpoint to the clop of their horses hooves.

 _Toss a coin to your witcher._ It was never going to get out of Geralt’s head. It made good travelling music, though. 

They travelled all day, the heat baking the dirt roads into cracked dust. Roach and Thunderbolt panted in the heat and Geralt felt like doing the same. How Jaskier had spittle enough to sing was beyond him. This was a far cry from the muggy, oppressive heat of the Pontar, this was hot and dry. Arid, as Jaskier would surely have described it. 

As they rode they watched farm workers in the fields around them put down their tools and go inside.

“Sensible of them,” Jaskier said. “Pausing for lunch at noon, amid this heat.”

“Not just because of lunch,” Geralt said. He wasn’t good at talking and he didn’t understand all the complexities of being married, but he understood monsters. “Noonwraiths, there might be one about. I’ll ask in the village tomorrow.”

“Noonwraiths?”

Geralt hid a smile. He’d been intentionally vague because, loath though he was to admit it, Jaskier’s attention made him preen. Geralt hummed in confirmation. “Some people call them midday brides. They’re spirits that haunt fields at high noon.”

“How do they become spirits? Why are they called brides?”

“Noonwraiths are spirits created by violent death that cannot let go of this world, specifically, they are the spirits of women who died soon before their wedding day. That is, if they are killed in daylight. If they were killed under moonlight they become Midnightwraiths or Nightwraiths.”

“That’s so sad,” Jaskier said. “And then you have to kill them? All over again?”

Geralt inclined his head solemnly. “Again and again, they come back each day, or night, until their spirit is brought peace. Sometimes that’s something they treasured, a ring, a scrap of their wedding veil, but sometimes it’s harder.”

“What do you do then?”

“Only the dead can speak to the dead,” Geralt said. “Or a poet of enough skill can sometimes speak between worlds.”

“Someone has to sacrifice themselves to stop them from returning?”

Geralt nodded.

“That’s horrible.”

They rode several more paces, their horses hooves thudding in the dusty earth, sending up great clouds of tan soil.

“What happens if a bride is killed right at dusk? Or dawn?”

Geralt tilted his head to the side, considering. “Assuming their soul is unable to move on, I have heard of such a thing as a Duskwraith, although they’re rare. I’ve never heard of a Dawnwraith, but they must exist.”

“How does a wraith kill, if they are spirits.”

“They dance in the fields, any one who lays eyes on them dancing must join until they fall down dead. They can sap life away too, and use sunlight or moonlight to blind people.”

Jaskier’s eyes were wide. “They sound difficult to fight.”

“Tricky,” Geralt agreed. “Not impossible though. I put spectre oil on my silver sword.”

“Silver for monsters,” Jaskier murmurred. “But you have to do that until they leave this world?”

“Sometimes just killing them once is enough.”

“I should hope so. Dying once does it for most things.” Jaskier shot him a wry smile. “You’re talkative today.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Geralt said, but he was pleased that Jaskier was noticing his effort.

They stopped for the evening early, Geralt didn’t want to continue to ride since that would bring them past the village and he intended to inquire about noonwraiths in the morning. They made camp beside a field in a small copse of tree. Shade was difficult to find in these parts, the land being more field than forest here, but Geralt was grateful for it. The sun sank lower in the sky and sent long, odd shadows about their little campsite as Jaskier and Geralt moved about. Jaskier found twigs and logs for their fire, just big enough to cook, they needed no heat in this weather. Geralt lit it with an igni and pretended not to notice Jaskier’s admiring look. 

Geralt cooked a hare for them and they ate it tiredly, despite it being only early evening. The heat had sapped all energy from their bones. 

It hadn’t sapped the words from Jaskier’s mouth, though, and his chatter filled up the little clearing. Geralt offered a hum of aknowlegment where needed and put out the fire, settling in to clean and sharpen his silver sword. He might need it soon. 

The temperature lowered as night fell and the pair lay out their bedrolls without bothering with the tent. There were no clouds in the sky and the extra cover would only bring more heat. 

Geralt cursed his witcher enhanced vision, however, because he could see Jaskier even from the corner of his eye. He was shirtless, as was Geralt, but the moon was bright and full and seemed to pour across Jaskier’s skin as if it were lit from the inside. There were stories, simple, peasant stories of falling stars that came to earth and lived among humans, blessing them. Geralt knew those stories for the bullshit they were, but if a falling star were made human it would look like Jaskier.

“Coin for your thoughts?” the ex-viscount said. “I’ll toss it to you,” he added cheekily.

“Thinking about stories,” Geralt said. It was mostly true anyways. 

“Which kinds? Why?” 

Geralt smiled under cover of darkness. Jaskier never seemed to ask just one question, it was always multiple choice with him. “The happy ones, I was just thinking how they’re full of shit.”

Jaskier scoffed and turned over on his bedroll to face Geralt. “You only think that because you’re a miserable bastard.” 

“Hmmm.”

“I don’t think they’re full of shit.”

“Of course you don’t,” Geralt said, a touch derisively but not altogether unkindly. 

“I don’t. Take your Midday brides, or your midnight brides, or whatever. For every poor young woman who dies horribly before her wedding night there must be hundreds who don’t. They get married and dance with their husbands and their mothers cry and their fathers are proud.”

“Some of them have loveless marriages, jealous lovers. They fall ill, or drought hits.”

“Not every happy ending has to be a perfect ending,” Jaskier said. “You’re just a pessimist.”

“And you’re a fool,” Geralt said. It held no heat. They were…teasing. It was nice.

“An optomist,” Jaskier retorted. “And a realist. Just because I prefer to see the glass half empty doesn’t mean you and I don’t see the same amount of water in it.”

An owl hooted and Roach nickered softly nearby. Geralt was glad of their input because he had no retort for Jaskier’s surprisingly eloquent statement. He wondered if he would ever truly have the last word with his bard.

After a little while his bard began to snore lightly, and Geralt thought about it. _His_ bard. His husband, who was a bard. Who glowed in the moonlight and was so beautiful he seemed like a story and felt pity for monsters. 

Jaskier let out a soft sigh in his sleep and flopped over, gracelessly. He’d stuffed his pack underneath his head as a pillow but now his cheek slid off it and onto the dusty earth. His eyelids didn’t even twitch. Geralt smiled at his face, mussed hair and smushed cheek, quite the picture of the heavy sleeper, but the ground looked uncomfortable against Jaskier’s soft skin. 

Gerat knelt awkwardly and gently nudged Jaskier’s pack back under his head so that he wouldn’t wake in the morning with a crick in his neck. Then he lay on his own bedroll and let himself drift to sleep. 

He awoke from a dreamless state not long later. At first Geralt wasn’t sure what woke him, his witcher senses twanging, then he registered the faint noise. It was familiar, a whooshing, whirling sound that defied further description. He considered waking Jaskier, almost deciding against it, but then pictured Jaskier waking in the night and going to invesitage, or even just going for a piss and being drawn in. 

“Jaskier,” he whispered. When that didn’t work he laid a gentle hand on Jaskier’s bare shoulder, still shining so ethereally in the moonlight. “Jaskier,” he repeated slightly louder.

Jaskier woke with an inelegant snort and sat up.

“What,” he said muzzily. Then he cocked his head, hearing what Geralt heard. “What?” he asked more clearly.

“It’s a Nightwraith,” Geralt said simply. “We’re safe here, but don’t leave the campsite. You can go back to bed but I wanted you to know.”

Jaskier looked around at the copse of trees. “A nightwraith?”

“In the fields to the south, I think.”

Jaskier shivered, although the night was warm. He lay down but didn’t close his eyes, curling a little into himself on his side and facing Geralt. After a while he pulled the baskilisk leather doublet from his bag and draped it over his shoulders, even though it kept heat like fur. 

Another long moment passed and then the bard spoke. “It’s horrible,” he said softly. “Thinking about that poor girl but it’s also,” Geralt could see his blush even under the moonlight. “It’s also so frightening. The sound is eerie.”

The sound of the wraith in the field was faint and Geralt didn’t find it particularly disturbing, but he could understand Jaskier’s unease. “The doublet won’t protect you from a wraith,” he said. Damn. That hadn’t been comforting at all. He reached forward and grabbed the edge of Jaskier’s bedroll with both hands, tugging it until it overlapped his own. “I can, though,” he said. He pulled Jaskier close to him, curling his young husband to his chest and placed his silver sword in it’s sheath behind Jaskier. He then stretched his sword arm over the youth’s shoulder’s to hold him close, leaving his hand mere inches from the sword. It wouldn’t be needed tonight, but it was there just in case.

Geralt rested his chin atop Jaskier’s head and listened to the beating of his heart. It was still too quick for him to be falling asleep as they listened to the wraith dance in the fields, so Geralt began to hum. 

He was mostly tone deaf, but he hummed softly, his breath moving the hair by Jaskier’s ear. The tune was Toss a Coin, still in his head after the long day, but Geralt hummed it slowly, like a lullaby and heard Jaskier’s heartbeats steadily calm.

When Jaskier was surely asleep, or almost, Geralt could resist no longer, and he placed a soft kiss to Jaskier’s forhead before continuing to hum. He thought he heard Jaskier’s slowing heart race for just a beat or two, but he was falling asleep himself and could have imagined it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! sorry for the suuuper long delay, life got inconvenient. Anyways, this chapter isn’t long but the next one will have plenty of action and this is pretty sweet. Sorry for the filler, but at least Geralt is catching those feelings like a leipidopterist with a really big net.


End file.
